CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

 Associate law professor at Temple University Beasley School of Law. His research lies in the areas of constitutional law, criminal law, racism and American history, and his emerging scholarship interrogates the ways in which the Constitution promotes racism and anti-Blackness. His work has been published or is forthcoming in the UCLA Law Review, Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review, Columbia Law Review Forum, and others. He has presented his work at several notable conferences, including the Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. One of his articles was reprinted in the 38th volume of the Civil Rights Litigation and Attorney Fees Annual Handbook, published by the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). Another article was cited by the Honorable Carlton W. Reeves of the Southern District of Mississippi.

Prior to joining Temple Law, Professor Ben-Dan spent six-and-a-half years at the Legal Aid Society in New York City. First he served as a staff attorney in the Bronx Criminal Trial Practice for four years, representing hundreds of clients on both felony and misdemeanor matters and winning most of his trials. In 2019, he joined the Community Justice Unit, where he provided wrap-around legal services to participants in non-profit organizations that do Cure Violence work. In 2017, he was a founding member of the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid caucus (BALA), an amalgamation of over 100 Black Legal Aid lawyers that advocates for racial justice both within and without the Legal Aid Society. He served in BALA leadership for nearly five years.

Lawyer, private investigator, and visionary advocate who over 30 years ago, founded Prison Radio-- a groundbreaking multimedia platform dedicated to amplifying the voices of incarcerated individuals across the nation. Today, she continues to co-direct this transformative initiative, which has redefined how we hear and understand the humanity, agency, and lived experiences of those behind bars. Through her work, Noelle has reshaped public discourse on the criminal legal system, producing over 3500 recordings from more than 100 prison correspondents.  Among these is the celebrated voice of Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose writings she helped bring to global audiences in his bestselling book, Live From Death Row, (Harper's Perennial). Her unwavering commitment to elevating incarcerated voices has fundamentally challenged mainstream narratives surrounding mass incarceration.  Noelle poignantly observes, "We won't be able to do anything about the culture we live in unless we deal with incarceration." Her work situates mass incarceration at the center of legal and social discourse, exposing it as both a symptom and a driving force in racial capitalism."   

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A nationally recognized advocate for education justice, policy reform, and transformative leadership. She currently serves as the Senior Director of the Justice Education Center at the Claremont Colleges, where she leads efforts to institutionalize higher education in prison and create reintegration pathways for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students across the Claremont Colleges.

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Romarilyn brings over three decades of leadership and advocacy experience shaped by her lived experience as a formerly incarcerated woman and her academic scholarship. She is a doctoral student in Management at the Peter F. Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, where her research centers on leadership identity, resilience, and carceral systems. She previously served as the Executive Director of Project Rebound at Cal State Fullerton, where she expanded educational access and wraparound services for system-impacted students.

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Her commitment to structural change is rooted in abolitionist principles and community organizing. Romarilyn has advanced criminal justice policy through her work with the Women’s Policy Institute (WPI), where she collaborated on legislation that impacts the lives of incarcerated people. As a long-time member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), she has worked on campaigns for sentencing reform, conditions of confinement, and the leadership development of incarcerated women lifers. She has also served on numerous national advisory boards, helping to shape strategies, research agendas, and movement-building efforts that support the dignity, freedom, and leadership of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.

 an abolitionist media studies teacher, researcher, and collaborator with Community Hotline for Incarcerated People (CHIP) on the album of original music by incarcerated artists Bending the Bars. After coming to an abolitionist politics in 2015 through Black and Pink Chicago, Nicole's research on LGBTQ cultural production has increasingly addressed issues related to incarceration and abolition. Nicole's current research project explores the role of the audience in relation to media engagements with carcerality, and they seek to move the conversation beyond "raising awareness" to identify strategies for using media collaborations to intervene in carceral systems.

a grief counselor, community leader, coach and systems-change advocate dedicated to reimagining how we understand grief, healing, and justice especially for Black and Brown women impacted by trauma, incarceration, and loss.

Her own journey through grief, loss, domestic violence, incarceration, and reentry has taught me that pain can be a profound teacher and that lived experience is not a wound to hide, but wisdom to share. Through my work with the Ayana Thomas Initiative and its flagship program Grieving Back to Life, I create trauma-informed spaces where healing is possible, stories are honored, and women are empowered to rediscover purpose beyond their pain.

Too often, our justice, reentry, and behavioral-health systems respond to symptoms instead of addressing the root causes grief, disconnection, and unhealed trauma. My mission is to change that narrative by centering grief literacy, emotional healing, and peer-led leadership as essential pillars of community restoration.

She integrates the insight of lived experience with professional training in trauma-informed care, coaching, and community program design. My approach is human-centered, reentry-oriented, and culturally responsive  bridging the gap between service systems and the people most impacted by them. I believe real healing begins when we stop labeling pain and start creating spaces where it can be witnessed, held, and transformed.

Through the Ayana Thomvas Initiative, I lead multiple healing-centered programs, including:

Grieving Back to Life — a trauma-informed grief coaching program offering individual and group sessions for women navigating complex loss and life transitions.

The Grief Behind the Gravel —  is a court-mandated edition that provides trauma-informed grief education, emotional wellness support, and coping strategies for women who are currently involved in the judicial process and actively working through their cases.

I collaborate with reentry organizations, advocacy groups, and mental health practitioners to bring healing justice to spaces where it’s often missing  from courtrooms to correctional facilities to community rooms.

My work is guided by one simple truth:

Healing is our greatest justice.