Our Team
We are a multi-disciplinary team of academics and students in law, data science, and social science that conducts research and disseminates data and reports on the Second Chance Gap in expungement and racial disparities in the California criminal justice system pursuant to the Racial Justice Act.
Faculty and Advisors
Colleen Chien
Founder and Director
Colleen V. Chien is a Professor of Law at Berkeley Law School and co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology where she teaches and researches in the realms of artificial intelligence, patents, and the criminal justice system.
Navid Shaghaghi
Web Tools Manager
Navid Shaghaghi is a lecturer and researcher in the department of Computer Science & Engineering (CSEN) of the School of Engineering, and the department of Information Systems and Analytics (ISA) of the School of Business at Santa Clara University.
William Sundstrom
Faculty Advisor
Dr. William Sundstrom is the Stephen and Patricia Schott Professor of Economics at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. His research interests include poverty and inequality, the economic history of labor markets, education and related institutions, and the economics of race and gender.
Adam Osmond
Advisor
Adam Osmond, an accountant and data analyst, has spent years collecting and analyzing large public data including criminal data from Connecticut spanning decades. He is passionate about criminal justice reform, as he has witnessed the lasting impact convictions have on the livelihoods of others.
Hithesh Bathala
Advisor
Hithesh Sekhar is a software development engineer at Amazon, an Information Systems M.S. graduate, and alum of the Paper Prisons team who continues to support the project.
Matthew Stubenberg
Advisor
Matthew Stubenberg is an Innovator in Residence at William S. Richardson School of Law and formerly worked as a researcher at Harvard Law School's Access to Justice Lab. He also created the MDExpungement.com website which has generated over 100,000 petitions for expungement.
Robert Apel
Advisor
Dr. Robert Apel is a criminologist and Professor at Rutgers University-Newark whose research focuses on the intersection of crime, the justice system, and the labor market.
Law & Research Team
Alivia Dawson
Legal Studies
Alivia Dawson is a third-year undergraduate student intending to study legal studies at UC Berkeley. She is passionate about reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system and hopes to one day pursue a successful career in law.
Juliette Draper
Law Student
Juliette is a law student at Berkeley Law. She has a background in policy research in the reproductive health and justice space. After law school, Juliette hopes to be a litigator in her hometown of Houston, Texas and wants to do advocacy work in the economic justice space.
Alonzo Harvey
Political Science
Alonzo Harvey graduated from UC Berkeley in 2025 and is aspiring to become a crime defense lawyer. A father of three, he balances parenting with his role as a data analyst on the Racial Justice Act team at the Criminal Law and Justice Center, led by Chesa Boudin. Formerly incarcerated, Alonzo's personal growth and commitment to justice drive his efforts in analyzing DA policies to support racial equity in the criminal justice system.
Audrey Im
Computer Science
Audrey Im is a backend software engineer working for DoorDash with an interest in public policy, looking to leverage her technical acumen for social good.
Chau Le
Law Student
Chau is a law student at Berkeley Law. Her legal interests include housing justice and human rights within the criminal legal context. After law school, she hopes to pursue a career in public defense or civil rights litigation on behalf of plaintiffs harmed by the carceral system.
Dylan Margolis
Economics & Data Science
Dylan Margolis is a senior at UC Berkeley majoring in Economics and Data Science. He has interest in the intersection between technology and the law, particularly how data science and econometric frameworks can be utilized to improve the efficacy and implementation of the legal system.
Aarav Minocha
Political Science & Philosophy with a minor in Public Policy
Freshman from New York majoring in Political Science and Philosophy at Berkeley. Interested in technology governance as well as how policy can be used to expand access to mental health resources to improve outcomes in the criminal justice field. Hopes to one day go to law school.
Anita Srinivasan
Law
Anita Srinivasan is an LL.M. candidate at UC Berkeley School of Law and a Frédéric Bastiat Fellow at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University. She earned her first law degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Prior to Berkeley, Anita practiced law in India for a decade, advising on securities, M&A, fintech, and blockchain regulation. Her current research explores AI governance and the regulation of emerging technologies, with a focus on how legal systems can adapt to increasingly agentic AI applications and decentralized architectures.
Sarah Michelle Varley
Sociology
Sarah Varley, a senior sociology major at UC Berkeley and Regents' and Chancellor's Scholar, aims to attend law school after graduation. After a 15-year hiatus, she returned to school thanks to remote learning and has diverse experience, including running a wolf sanctuary with her fiancé. She continues her work in wolf rescue through her YouTube channel, aspiring to combine animal-assisted healing and criminal justice reform as an attorney.
Kingdawud Burgess
Media & Public Outreach
Kingdawud Burgess is always growing, always improving, and never wearing just one hat. He supports the Paper Prisons Initiative by filming and producing social media content. He loves helping people, which inspired him to create his nonprofit ManyBrilliantMinds. His passion for music and film led him to launch DirtyCide Multimedia LLC, and with a film degree plus several published books and scripts, he's now bringing his first movie, 100 Years in Morocco, to life. Kingdawud expresses his love for style and nice cars through LavishLivin LLC, along with several lifestyle brands sold on Amazon.
Tech Team
Yabo Du
Engineer
Yabo has more than 10 years of experience working in software development & project management. He is focusing on high performance distribution systems, large-scale data processing and Web3 technologies. Yabo also loves SUP, pickle ball and swimming.
Lain Boyle
Computer Science and Theater Arts
Lain is a full stack developer, artist, and storyteller. He's passionate about accessibility, equity, and creating intuitive and enriching experiences for people from all walks of life.
Partners
The Paper Prisons Initiative is made possible through the support of our collaborators and partners
Contact Us
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