Rev. Rubén Austria is the founding Executive Director of Community Connections for Youth. As a 2007 Soros Justice Fellow with the W. Haywood Burns Institute, Rev. Austria advocated for the redirection of funds from incarceration to community-based alternatives for youth. Seeing the need to equip more grassroots faith and community-based organizations to develop effective alternative-to-incarceration programs, he launched Community Connections for Youth in the fall of 2008. Rev. Austria is a respected advocate for juvenile justice reform and is recognized locally and nationally as an expert on community-based alternatives to incarceration. He serves on the national advisory board of the Community Justice Network for Youth, the Steering Committee of the Juvenile Justice Coalition of New York, and is a founding member of the NYC Task Force on Racial Disparity in the Juvenile Justice System. In 2004, he was selected as a Research Fellow by the Robert Bowne Foundation to conduct qualitative research on the youth development and juvenile justice and his article, “Towards a Movement: Uniting Direct Service Providers and Community Organizers for Juvenile Justice Reform”, was published in the Spring 2006 edition of the peer-reviewed journal Afterschool Matters. Rev. Austria earned both his B.S. in Psychology in 1996, and his M.A. in Southeast Asian Studies in 2002, from Cornell University. He completed the Institute for Non-Profit Management at Columbia University Business School’s Executive Education program in 1999.

Gisele has more than 20 years of experience creating and leading organizations that focus on ensuring equity in justice for court-involved youth. She has a Master’s of Public Administration and Non-Profit Management from Pace University, and graduated as a member of the Pi Alpha Alpha National Honor Society for Public Affairs and Administration. She studied at the graduate level at Oxford University where she researched U.S. vs. U.K. juvenile justice systems.

Gisele has strong roots within exalt, having served previously as Director of Programs and External Relations from 2010-2013; Board Member from 2013-2015 and former Board Chair. She was also the Director at CASES, Family Court division and was instrumental in redesigning the program model and structure.

Gisele has taught courses on leadership development at Bank Street College and advises students in the Master’s in Education and Leadership in Community – Based Learning program. Her role at Bank Street was expanded in 2015, to redesign the program for Leadership in Community-Based Organizations.

As she leads exalt through its inaugural scaling initiative, Gisele is poised to position the organization to become a thought leader and use our compelling data to prove that our most marginalized young people have an important place in our society.

Nadya Encarnacion hails from New York City and is passionate about NYC young people maximizing their purpose and potential. She began her journey in youth development in 2005 serving at-risk youth in Washington Heights and has since transitioned into juvenile justice when she joined the exalt team in 2011. She is proud to serve as exalt's Associate Director of Programs overseeing and supporting their referral process in addition to leading, serving and guiding Program Coordinators that play pivotal roles in the development of exalt's young leaders. Nadya is also an actress, with roles in television, film and voiceover. Nadya obtained her B.A. from Fairfield University, M.A. from Manhattan College and is a graduate of The American Musical & Dramatic Academy, and has completed the New York Community Trust Leadership Fellows Program at the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College.

Malachi Larrabee-Garza is the founder and Principle at Innovative Justice Solutions. In this role, Malachi engages grassroots and intermediary organizations, philanthropy, impact investors and governments to engage in collaborative projects for the collective good. Malachi is currently a Rosenberg Leading Edge Fellow focused on building reparations and restorative justice based collaboration in emerging cannabis economy. Malachi's previous work includes directing the Community Justice Network for Youth, a U.S. based national network of over 250 organizations working to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities within justice systems and build localized community alternatives. Malachi serves on the Board of Directors of the House of GG's: Griffin-Gracy Educational Retreat & Historical Center, Southerners On New Ground and the Transgender and Intersexed Justice Project. In 2015 Malachi received the VotoLatino Innovators Award for their work to bridge the technological divide particularly for Latino families who have incarcerated loved ones. In 2009 Malachi co-founded the Brown Boi Project. Malachi has been working 24/7 to build a liberation focused movement for the past 21 years and believes that we will win.

Alexander Lee is the Project Director for the Grantmakers United for Trans Communities (GUTC) initiative at Funders for LGBTQ Issues. Prior to joining Funders, Alex was a public interest career counselor at UC Berkeley School of Law, providing coaching and ongoing professional development for the next generation of social justice attorneys. Before that, Alex served as the founding Executive Director of the Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), a community-based legal services and policy organization based in San Francisco that works to end the abuse of transgender people in prison. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Astraea Foundation and as a grantmaking panel member for the Saguaro Fund of the Funding Exchange. He is currently a board member for Borealis Philanthropy.

As a filmmaker, Alex co-founded the all-queer and trans filmmakers of color production collective Light Show Pictures in 2014. Alex seeks to use mass media to further his activism by sparking conversations with the larger public on complex issues such as alternatives to the prison industrial complex and a world without borders. Alex is a former Soros Justice Fellow and received his JD from UC Berkeley School of Law.

Tia Elena Martinez has over 25 years of experience doing social change work in low income communities and communities of color in the United States. Over the decades her work has spanned a wide range of issues including education reform, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the war on drugs, homelessness, affordable housing, disconnected youth, and immigration. She is currently an independent consultant doing work on dismantling the school to prison pipeline and transforming life chances for boys and men of color. Prior to consulting, she was the Chief Equity Officer at the Stupski Foundation where she designed an R & D effort focused on applying knowledge from the psychology and neuroscience to help low income students and student of color own and drive their learning and increase academic achievement. Tia came to the foundation from the Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at UC Berkeley Law School, where she was acting director of education, leading a policy unit focused on issues related to education reform, teacher effectiveness, and racial justice. Prior to joining the Warren Institute, she served as strategic consultant to the Office for Civil Rights in the US Department of Education leading their strategic planning process and supporting rollout and implementation of the new strategy across 12 regional offices. Prior to working with the department, Tia was a senior manager with the Bridgespan Group where she led engagements with large, national foundations and major civil rights groups. She’s also been a senior fellow at the Hewlett Foundation, a policy analyst for the Corporation for Supportive Housing and the San Francisco Mayor’s HIV Health Services Planning Council, and a street outreach worker. Tia has an AB in History from Harvard University, a Master in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, and a JD from Stanford Law School.

Dorsey Nunn is a leading expert with over 40 years of professional experience in criminal justice reform. He is the first formerly incarcerated director of a public interest law office in California. Dorsey was sentenced to life in the California Department of Corrections when he was 19 years old. He was paroled in 1981 and discharged from parole in 1984. Under his leadership LSPC has made significant advances including the development of the Elder Freeman Policy Fellowship, legal victories including the Ashker lawsuit that ended long term solitary confinement in California, and policy victories including numerous Ban the Box laws passed at the local, state, and federal levels, the end of shackling of pregnant women, and the biggest drug sentencing reform passed by the CA legislature in recent history (SB 180).

Prior to becoming Executive Director, he worked as a paralegal, community organizer, and program manager at LSPC and as a paralegal at the Prison Law Office. Dorsey’s leadership has helped to establish several local and national institutions and movement building projects including All of Us or None, Free at Last, Critical Resistance, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, and the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted People and Families Movement. His commitment to anti-racist organizing is international. He has visited numerous international prisons including prisons in El Salvador, New Zealand, and South Africa. He has also served on delegations to international conferences including The International Conference on Prison Abolition in Canada and The International Conference on Youth in Cuba.

Dorsey has received federal and local recognition including the White House Champion of Change Award signed by President Obama, Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition by Nancy Pelosi, the Senate Certificate of Recognition by Senator Jackie Speier and Karen Bass, Certificate of Appreciation from the California State Assembly, Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, and recognition from the SF Board of Supervisors and Mayor Gavin Newsom. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Chief Justice Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award from the ACLU of Northern California, the Movement Builders Award from A New Way of Life, and the Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks Visiting Professorship from the University of Michigan.

Dorsey has been instrumental to changing the national narrative around formerly incarcerated people and centering people with conviction histories as experts in the field of criminal justice reform. His work has been featured in local and national publications including the LA Times, the SF Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, NY Times, Washington Post, and the Nation. Michelle Alexander wrote about Dorsey and his work with all of Us or None in her best-selling book, The New Jim Crow. He is a frequently requested speaker at conferences, universities, and in documentaries including Ava DuVernay’s 13th. Since Dorsey was released from prison he has focused on reunifying, restoring, and healing his family. He is a loving father and grandfather who is inspired by his grandchildren and great grandchildren to keeping working to create a better future for all youth."

Jenny Pereria is the Vice President of Grants Programs at the Rhode Island Foundation Providence, Rhode Island, a community foundation that provides a link between philanthropy and the needs of Rhode Islanders.

Marlon is the author of Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist’s Freedom Song, the host of the Decarcerated Podcast, and an Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity. He is also the founder and chief re-imaginator of The Precedential Group, a social justice consulting firm, and a 2015 recipient of the prestigious Soros Justice Fellowship.

Ebony Magazine has named him one of America's 100 most influential and inspiring leaders in the Black community. He is also an Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar, and Fall 2016 TED Resident. His TED Talk, "Am I Not human? A Call for Criminal Justice Reform," has over 1 million views.

Marlon's writings have appeared in Ebony, Gawker, The Nation, USA Today, NewsOne,The Crime Report, Black Press USA, Huff Post, The Root, Colorlines, and other online publications. He has contributed to Kiese Laymon's award winning novel, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America and Love Lives Here, Too by former New York Times columnist, Sheila Rule, and the upcoming anthology by Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin, How to Fight White Supremacy. Marlon lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is working on his first novel.

Marlene Sanchez is a proud San Francisco Native, Chicana, movement leader, organizer, and a formerly incarcerated woman. Marlene was recently Interim Executive Director of Alliance for Girls an organization she helped found. Marlene served as the Associate Director of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ) where she worked to build infrastructure, and leadership of other formerly incarcerated people in Oakland. Marlene came to community work at age 15 looking for employment and a way out of streets and the juvenile justice system. She was hired as a community health outreach worker, providing HIV/STD education and harm reduction supplies and love to hundreds of young women who lived and worked in the underground street economies of San Francisco. Marlene was the Executive Director of the Young Women’s Freedom Center formerly known as the Center for Young Women's Development for 10 years where she worked to build power with other incarcerated and formerly incarcerated young women. Marlene has a passion for working with youth, in particular with young women, girls, GNC folks, and transgender women. In 1999, she was sworn in by the Superior Court of San Francisco as the first “youth” appointed to the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Commission, on which she served for five years. For six years she co-chaired the Community Justice Network for Youth, a national organization of community-based programs that serve youth of color in the juvenile justice system. Marlene is a founding member of All of Us or None; a movement building group working to restore the rights of, and fight against the discrimination of, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. Marlene received from his Holiness the Dali Lama an award as an Unsung Hero, was celebrated at the National Centerforce Conference, and was awarded the Harold Atkins award for ending cycles of incarceration. Nationally Marlene provides training to organizations who want to understand and follow best practices for working with system-involved youth and who want to adopt a restorative practice for healing and transformation. She has six siblings and is a mother of two wonderful young men Daniel and Elijah and a daughter Amaya. She enjoys building community, siblinghood, and creating spaces for healing as a priority.