Rebecca Ginsburg is a co-founder and current director of the Education Justice Project (EJP), a unit of the University of Illinois. Through its prison education programs, events, outreach, and advocacy, EJP supports critical awareness of incarceration and reentry, with special focus on the responsibility of institutions of higher education to engage systems-involved individuals during and after incarceration. 

Rebecca received her Bachelors degree in English from Loyola Marymount University, her JD from the University of Michigan Law School, and a PhD in Architectural History from the University of California at Berkeley.

Marsheda Ewulomi is a former Secondary English Teacher and current Attorney working on police accountability and expanding higher education in prison at BPI Chicago as the Polikoff-Gautreaux Fellow. Born in Lansing, Michigan, Marsheda graduated with Distinction from the University of Michigan with a BA in English and African and AfroAmerican Studies. 

Upon graduating, Marsheda taught secondary English in Metro D.C. as a Teach For America Corp Member. She then returned to Michigan to support Mid-Michigan Leadership Academy (MMLA), the K-8 school she graduated from, as a Behavioral and Academic Interventionist. During her tenure at MMLA she supported new teachers, founded a club focused on supporting 7th and 8th grade girls, ran an aftercare program for kindergartners and first graders, coached dance, and worked with all age groups as a floating building substitute teacher. Upon concluding her position at MMLA, Marsheda transitioned to Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. As a law student, she was active in putting the arts and creativity at the center of policy and reform discussions. In 2018, she graduated cum laude from Northwestern Law.

Christina Rivers, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Political Science, and a DePaul Presidential Diversity Fellow for the 2019-2020 academic year. Her teaching and research interests include African-American politics, civil and voting rights and the political implications of mass incarceration. She is the author of The Congressional Black Caucus, Minority Voting Rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court, and two articles on felony disenfranchisement laws and prison-based gerrymanders. She teaches a course on law and politics at Stateville Correctional Center to a mix of incarcerated and free students, as part of DePaul’s Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. She also coordinates a think tank at Stateville, comprised of alumni of her course.

With the think tank and members of the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Chicago Votes, Dr. Rivers was involved in the writing and passage of Illinois’ “Re-Entering Citizens Civics Education Act” (PA 101-0441). This law mandates voting and civics information as part of the exit process from the state’s Department of Corrections and Department of Juvenile Justice. She also volunteers with Chicago Votes to provide registration and voting access to detained citizens at Cook County Jail. Her current scholarly project is an edited volume on voting access for pre-trial detainees, felony disenfranchisement laws, and prison gerrymanders.

Alice Kim writes, teaches, and organizes around access to education for people who are incarcerated, capital punishment, police torture and the prison system. She is the Director of Human Rights Practice at The University of Chicago’s Pozen Family Center for Human Rights where she leads a Lab that engages students and community in human rights work addressing the crisis of incarceration and criminalization. Kim teaches at a maximum-security prison in Illinois and leads the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project’s community building efforts connecting scholars, artists and civic leaders with incarcerated students.

Ashton Hoselton works on legal and policy issues related to higher education in prisons, housing for justice-involved individuals, and other criminal legal system reform efforts. Prior to her current position, Ashton held a number of positions that inform her passion to combat the harms of mass incarceration while promoting prison abolition. She was a teacher and volunteer coordinator at the Prison Education Project, a program operating in California correctional facilities; a program assistant for the Reintegration Academy, a reentry program that aims to create a “prison-to-school pipeline;” and a Fulbright Fellow in Uganda where she conducted research on the Ugandan Prison System to determine the essential factors creating Uganda’s relatively low recidivism rate. Ashton received her BA in Neuropsychology from Pitzer College and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center.

Maggie Shelledy is a Faculty Affiliate of the Education Justice Project, and she works on EJP's reentry guide, Mapping Your Future: A Guide to Successful Reentry. Maggie is also an Assistant Professor of Writing and Language Studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her current research focuses on the experiences of formerly incarcerated people in higher education and abolitionist approaches to writing program administration and pedagogy.

Pablo Mendoza is a proud father and lifelong student. He is currently enrolled in Northeastern Illinois University’s University Without Walls undergrad program. He is a staunch advocate for the poor and disenfranchised with an eye towards a more equitable tomorrow. Pablo is a prison abolitionist who struggles against the privileges imbued upon him by society in his campaign to create a new future. Pablo has been directly impacted and served 22 years within the Illinois Department of Corrections. He’s currently Project Manager/Research Fellow with the Prison + Neighborhood Art/Education Project, Walls Turned Sideways. He is also involved with several other campaigns throughout the state including: University of Illinois Education Justice Project Reentry Guide Initiative; Freedom To Learn Campaign; Illinois Coalition for Higher Education in Prison; Illinois Reentry Alliance for Justice; Fully Free Campaign; and others.