Social and Ecological Infrastructure for Recidivism Reduction

Colleen Murphy-Dunning is the Director of the Hixon Center for Urban Ecology and the Urban Resources Initiative (URI) at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). URI carries out community based forestry as a strategy to improve both social cohesion and the physical environment. At the Hixon Center, Colleen administers a range of research projects conducted in cities across the globe. Colleen also partners with faculty to lead a field based module on urban ecology for all incoming Yale F&ES graduate students. Prior to coming to Yale University in 1995, she taught agroforestry at the Kenya Forestry College and reviewed natural resource operations in Papua New Guinea for the Rainforest Action Network. Colleen received her B.S. in Public and Environmental Affairs from Indiana University, and M.S. in Forestry from Humboldt State University.

Karen Hsueh is the Co-Director of the Insight Garden Program (IGP). She first joined the organization as a volunteer in 2015 and since then has held a variety of roles within the organization. In addition to her work with IGP, Karen offers consultation to multiple California-based criminal justice reform groups. She is also the Co-Coordinator for the Transformative In-Prison Workgroup (TPW) a California-based coalition of 50 in-prison program providers. Karen holds a Master’s Certificate in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems from Tufts University, and earned her BA in Political Science from Marist College.

Arnold Trevino is Reentry Coordinator and Co-Facilitator at Insight Garden Program. As an IGP Reentry Coordinator/Co-Facilitator at ASP, Arnold deeply values the opportunity that IGP provides for people to grow from the inside-out. Having spent 25 years of his life in prison, his own transformation of growing from the inside-out enabled him to become a proactive and productive member of society. Arnold earned his Master’s Degree in Social Work at California State University, Fresno and continues his journey with IGP as he shares about the endless possibilities and the breathtaking rewards of change with those who are currently incarcerated.

Sol Mercado is Alumna of Insight Garden Program and Nursery Technician at Planting Justice.  After being incarcerated for 16 years, Sol found her true passion when she joined the Insight Garden Program. In the process of learning how to garden she learned what it really meant to incorporate gardening into her personal life by weeding things out of her own life and leaving room for things to blossom. IGP supported her during her parole process and reentry preparations by providing employment and guidance throughout the whole process. She now works for Planting Justice and is still involved with IGP. Thanks to IGP her transition back into the community has been positive and successful.

Christine Lynn Norton, PhD, LCSW, is a Professor of Social Work at Texas State University. She received her Ph.D in Social Work from Loyola University Chicago. She has a Master of Arts in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago, and a Master of Science in Experiential Education from Minnesota State University-Mankato.  She has taught as adjunct faculty at The University of Denver, Prescott College, and Naropa University. Her areas of practice and research interest and expertise are in innovative, experiential interventions in child and adolescent mental health; outdoor behavioral healthcare; experiential education and adventure therapy; positive youth development; foster care support in higher education; and international social work.

Jarid Manos, an American writer and activist, is the author of Ghetto Plainsman, which is currently being made into a movie, and the upcoming short story collection The Sun and the Water. Jarid Manos is also Founder of Great Plains Restoration Council, based in Fort Worth, Texas. Focusing on prairies and waters, GPRC created the nature-based work therapy model of Ecological Health where people take care of their own health through taking care of the Earth, and applies it through its Restoration Not Incarceration™, Plains Youth InterACTION™,  and Your Health Outdoors™ programming. GPRC’s on-the-ground Ecological Health projects have taken place in Texas, New Mexico, and South Dakota, and have recently expanded with Shark Therapy™ in South Florida and Atlanta.  Great Plains Restoration Council is now helping others adopt and adapt Restoration Not Incarceration™ to their local ecosystems and human needs. JaridManos.com GPRC.org

Raquel Rivera Pinderhughes is a teacher, scholar, activist whose work focuses on improving quality of life for people living in cities, particularly those from low-income communities. She has created and directed empowering education programs in prisons and jails for 30+ years. The environmental literacy and work readiness program she created - called “Roots of Success” - is offered in hundreds of prisons, jails, and reentry programs throughout the U.S. The course strengthens academic and professional skills, helps individuals understand complex environmental injustices, problems, and solutions, prepares them for 125 jobs/careers in environmental fields and, inspires them to be activists who can improve conditions in their communities. The course is taught by prisoners who are trained, certified, and paid to teach the course. To date, 28,000 students have graduated from the program. She is professor of Urban Studies and Planning at San Francisco State. 

Grady Mitchell is a certified Roots of Success instructor and master trainer who has taught the Roots of Success course to hundreds of men incarcerated in the state of Washington. Grady was incarcerated at age 24 and spent 37 years behind bars before he was able to return to his family and community on January 28, 2021. Grady is deeply committed to empowering and liberating educational programs and opportunities for incarcerated individuals. He brings 37 years of direct experience to his understanding of how prisons are structured, organized, administered, financed, and managed. Grady uses Roots of Success as one of the platforms to bring light into a place of darkness and into dark moments in people’s lives.

Kelli Bush co-directs the Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP), a partnership founded by The Evergreen State College (Evergreen) and Washington State Department of Corrections (WA Corrections) to empower sustainable change by bringing nature, science, and environmental education into prisons. Kelli oversees all Evergreen-led programs, primarily SPP’s conservation and environmental education initiatives. She works with co-director Stephen Sinclair, also Secretary for WA Corrections, to lead more than 180 SPP sustainability and nature programs statewide and disseminate the model internationally. At Evergreen, Kelli provides leadership for a team of twelve staff who coordinate programs, providing direct service and facilitating learning exchanges in the prisons. Prior to joining SPP in 2010, she gained over 15 years of horticulture and restoration ecology experience and earned a B.A. in Agriculture Ecology from The Evergreen State College.

Stephen Sinclair serves as Secretary of the Washington State Department of Corrections. He was appointed by Governor Inslee on April 25, 2017.  Sinclair created the Sustainable Practices Lab, which employs incarcerated individuals in jobs that provide meaningful vocational skills while reducing idleness and gives back to the community. The lab is a national model of innovation that reduces recidivism. Sinclair has a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington. He is Co-Director of the Sustainability in Prisons Project. Sinclair is dedicated to improving public safety by positively changing lives and to making advances to not only Washington State Corrections, but contributing to nationwide change.

Carolina Landa has seven years’ experience in direct advocacy work, focusing on incarcerated/formerly incarcerated individuals, special needs communities, and immigration. Carolina’s passion for these issues stems from her personal lived experiences, and she believes that people with lived experiences have the power to impact the most change by using testimonies to carry the message.  Carolina is the Statewide Reentry Council Coordinator in Washington State and she serves on the Advisory Panel for Sustainability in Prisons Project. She graduated with her Bachelor of Arts degree from The Evergreen State College with a focus on Policy and Social Justice in 2019 and she is currently pursuing her Masters of Public Administration, also at The Evergreen State College. 

Stacy Burnett is an alumna of BPI and participated in the BPI garden program at Taconic. She is a Public Health Advisor at New York City Health + Hospitals and also assists women with criminal justice involvement pursue higher education at College & Community Fellowship. She is continuing her education at CUNY and is a BPI Public Health Fellow exploring the relationship between the single-use plastics endemic to prison meal preparation and human and environmental health. She resides in Flushing, New York and has created a community compost site since NYC stopped collecting food waste. She continues to garden, too, keeping an herb garden in her kitchen. 

Manny Gonzalez is an AA alum of BPI and was actively engaged in the BPI gardening program at Woodbourne Correctional Facility. Now living in Newburgh, Manny is actively involved with his community as a teacher of computer science at the Newburgh Armory Unity Center, the founder of the NYS Health Markets/Farmers To-Go Bags, the farmers market manager for Orange County Health Department and a volunteer with the Newburgh Armory food distribution initiative, which feeds 700 families each week. 

Alex Hall currently co-owns a strength gym in Long Island City called JDI Barbell. He was a BPI Public Health Fellow and currently works with BPI as their Housing Associate, connecting alumni returning home with transitional and permanent housing. He earned his BA with BPI and was involved with the gardening program in Fishkill Correctional Facility, which opened his mind to the benefits of urban farming and the connectedness of life from the soil up. 

Demetrius James is a current BPI Public Health Fellow, working to develop an initiative called Project Oasis, a gardening program for NYCHA public housing residents. Demetrius received his BA from Bard College and his Masters degree from New York Theological Seminary. He was also an avid gardener in the Fishkill Correctional Facility garden.

Floyd Jarvis is a former BPI Public Health Fellow. His work is entitled “Keeping black Markets Black: A Stratification Economic, Public Health, and Reparative Justice Model for Cannabis Equity in the City of New York.” Floyd is currently the Paerdegat Basin Ecology Park Docent, working closely with Natural Areas Conservancy and the NYC Parks Department. Floyd is also the Executive Director of Canarsie Neighborhood Alliance. Through this venture he founded the Canarsie Neighborhood Community Garden and is developing a program to employ 100 Canarsie youth in green jobs.

William Jett is the inaugural Fleet Manager at GrowNYC, working to develop its fleet safety program. He has worked for GrowNYC for 9 years, starting out as a volunteer and then hired as a Compost Coordinator and compost/textile driver until his recent promotion. William was released on parole in January 2011 after 26 years in prison. While incarcerated, he attended and then graduated from Bard College in 2010 with a BA degree. He has since graduated from NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service with a Master of Urban Planning degree in 2016.  

Jocelyn Apicello has been teaching public health courses with BPI since 2012 and currently is the Faculty Advisor for BPI’s Urban Farming & Sustainability program and the Community Engagement Internship. She oversees gardening activities at correctional facilities, incorporating academic and hands-on learning in the areas of regenerative agriculture, climate justice and land stewardship. Partnering with her husband, Jocelyn also owns Longhaul Farm, a micro-farm in the Hudson Valley, and the Ecological Citizen’s Project. In her most recent project at the ECP, she seeks to create regenerative communities by combining urban farming, a community land trust model, community-owned renewable energy and employee-owned business. Jocelyn earned her DrPH at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, writing about gentrification in New York City and its influence on the habitats of New Yorkers.

Rima Green is the Director of the Lettuce Grow program at Growing Gardens. A Native American, Rima has experienced foster care and incarceration, as both a juvenile and adult. After a 30-year career in the high-tech industry, Rima returned to her love of gardening and working with individuals who, like she, are caught up in the correctional system. Rima holds two degrees in Computer Science. 

Sharon Lindhorst Everhardt, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Troy University.  She received her Ph.D. from Wayne State University in Sociology with a specialization in Race, Class, and Gender.  Her main research interests include the study of race, class, and gender, especially low-income populations of women and Clinical Sociology. Currently, her major projects concern poverty, food insecurity, social isolation, and community gardens in low-income areas of Alabama and amongst marginalized populations as evidenced by recent publications, Can Gardening Help Address Food Insecurity and Social Isolation Among Older Adults? A Pilot Study in Rural Alabama in Activities, Adaptation & Aging and School Gardens: Unpacking the Potential to Reduce Food Insecurity Among Alabama’s Children in Research in Political Sociology.

Daniela Jauk, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Akron, Ohio. She received a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Graz, in her home country of Austria. She completed her doctoral work in Sociology as a Fulbright student at the University of Akron/OH, specializing in Qualitative Research Methodologies and Sociology of Deviance and Gender Studies. She worked as an applied sociologist in for Oriana House Inc. from 2018-19, gaining in-depth experience with corrections research, mixed-methods research projects, and grant writing. This is where she initiated a pilot project for women and several grant applications to introduce and assess the potential of horticulture for health and wellbeing in carceral settings. She continues to expand this research in collaboration with national research partners.  

Stephen B. Carmody, Ph.D., is an anthropological archeologist. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Troy University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in Anthropology with a specialization in archaeology and paleoethnobotany. His research focuses the origins of agriculture, the origins of structural inequality, agricultural sustainability, and food justice. These themes are the focus of several recent publications including “Agricultural Innovation and Dispersal in Eastern North America,” “The Context and Consequences of Sexual Harassment in Southeastern Archaeology,” and “From the Past … A More Sustainable Future?” Stephen serves and an executive board member for the Tennessee Council of Professional Archaeologists, and served on the Society for American Archaeology’s Committee for Native American Relations as well as the Southeastern Archaeological Conference Sexual Harassment Committee. He currently conducts archaeological research excavations in North America and in Italy.

Andria Blackwood, Ph.D., is a research specialist for Oriana House, Inc. in Akron, Ohio. She holds a Master’s degree in Sociology with a concentration in social inequalities and institutional racism and a Doctoral degree in Geography centered on urban studies and the racial distribution of wealth, health, and wellbeing. She is currently the manager of a community corrections facility garden. She has been an active community garden member for over fourteen years and an avid teacher and promoter of techniques in gardening for small spaces with limited resources.

Brenda I. Gill, Ph.D., is a mixed-method prepared family sociologist and professor at Alabama State University (ASU) in the Department of Criminal Justice and Social Sciences. Her scholarship includes her service on the editorial Board of The University of Guyana Press, and Past President and current Executive Board Member of the Alabama Mississippi Sociological Association (AMSA). She has been the Relationship Expert for the Alabama Prison Reentry program for the past 8 years. She received a Ph.D. in Family Sociology with a minor in Education from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 2009. Her research focus is mostly international and generally examines topics related to families along with intersections of gender, age, race, religion, Socio-Economic status, and other variables. Her research interests include multiculturalism, diversity, family, media, violence, and other issues. Some of her more recent work includes an edited book with Sabella Abidde, Africans and the Exiled Life: Migration, Culture, and Globalization. Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books and a report for the Government of Guyana: “Adolescent Health and Well-Being: Implications for Prevention and Intervention.”  

Mirabai Collins is a program coordinator for the Lettuce Grow program at Growing Gardens, in Portland, Oregon. She holds an undergraduate degree in English with an emphasis in linguistics, and is concerned with African American poetics as relates to expressive constructs within oppressive and undermining frameworks. Attendant to this work is the exploration of un/natural environments and their creative possibilities, which brings her back to the land and, as a member of the Black Food Sovereignty Coalition and co-founder of Black Futures Farm, the fight for food-systems justice. In 2004, Mirabai Collins’ brother was sentenced to between 27 years and a life term in prison: an event which continues to inform and instruct her efforts, both personally and professionally, every day. 

Leslie Soble joined Impact Justice in 2018 as the Food in Prison Project Research Fellow. An educator and ethnographer, Leslie is the founder and artistic director of Story Soup, a project that creates contexts for dialogue across cultural and generational borders through food and narrative. Her academic research focuses on food as a cultural text, aesthetic domain, and site of performance. Leslie serves as a teaching artist with various DC-based arts programs and has over a decade of experience designing and facilitating cultural competency workshops to explore identity, systems of oppression, and intercultural/intergenerational communication. Leslie holds a BA in Gender Studies from Brown University, where her course of study focused on grassroots movements for social change. She received her MA in Cultural Sustainability, with a focus on the intersection of foodways, narrative theory, and social practice art, from Goucher College.

Terah Lawyer is the Program Manager for Impact Justice’s Homecoming Project, where her lived experiences as a formerly incarcerated woman who spent 15 years in prison continue to inform her work today.  She has been an advocate for incarcerated people for more than a decade as a peer health educator, a certified drug and alcohol counselor, and a youth diversion specialist. Terah is a past chair of the Beyond Incarceration Panel with the Central California Women’s Facility, a former intern at American Friends Service Committee’s Healing Justice Project, and a Next Generation Fellow at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.  She serves as a spokeswoman for the Drop the Life Without the Possibility of Parole campaign and volunteers with the California Coalition for Women’s Prisoners.  Terah is a musician, graphic designer, and public speaker.  She holds undergraduate degrees in business management and social & behavioral science.

Roy Waterman is an advocate for justice who works on educating and mobilizing the masses around issues impacting people who have been intercepted by the criminal legal system. He has a strong commitment to creating change and experience in being a collaborative thought partner with ideas and strategy. As a policy advocate, national speaker and leader around race relations and criminal legal reform, Roy works in new creative ways to handle issues of the past and present and has for many years been passionate and used positive energy to find solutions to challenges.  He is a Co-Founder of Drive Change, a vibrant social enterprise nonprofit that uses the mobile vending industry to train, empower, employ, and teach transferable skills to young people ages 18-25 years old who have been released from adult jails and prisons in the New York City area. The Snow Day food truck is the 2015 NYC Best Food Truck and People’s Choice award winner.

Roy has spoken at numerous high schools, community colleges and Ivy League universities (Columbia, NYU, Cardoza Law, UCLA, The New School, Rutgers, Fordham, Penn State, Hostos, St. Johns, St. Francis and Harvard), churches, NYPD Cease Fire, District Attorney’s Office and criminal justice reform conferences all around the country. His focus is on how we can all contribute to ending mass incarceration and the need to dismantle our current criminal justice system and create a new one devoid of inhumane jails and prisons. He strongly believes that a racist system that never had a level of humanity or equality to begin with cannot be tweaked or reformed.

Mark McBrine is the Food Service Manager at Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston, Maine, where he oversees two kitchens and dining facilities, as well as 7.5 acres of intensive vegetable production and a seven-acre orchard featuring 21 varieties of apples, as well as other fruit.  The food grown onsite is incorporated into the facility menu, sold to other facilities, and donated to local food cupboards and pantries. Mark also started a bakery program, where five inmate apprentices bake 100% of all bread and bakery products used in 1,500 meals a day. He has helped initiate food waste composting and intensive vegetable production throughout the Maine DOC.  In January 2020, Mark began a statewide training for all agricultural staff in the Maine DOC titled, “The Art of Intensive Vegetable Production.” Mark and his wife own a diversified organic farm where they have raised pasture-based livestock, fruit, and vegetables for over 20 years.

Amy Wagenfeld, PhD, OTR/L, SCEM, FAOTA is Lecturer in the Boston University Occupational Therapy Program and Principal of design +cOnsulTation. She is a fellow of the American Association of Occupational Therapy. She expands her role as an occupational therapist into the world of landscape architecture. Her work focuses on collaborative design, programming, and research of outdoor environments that support physical and emotional rehabilitation and learning in community and healthcare settings. Amy presents and publishes widely on topics relating to collaboration with designers and access to nature. Amy has served on the design team for three American Society of Landscape Architecture award winning therapeutic gardens, is recipient of a silver medal from the International Association of Universal Design, a Center for Health Design award, and two New York state design awards. She is co-author, with Daniel Winterbottom, of the award-winning book, Therapeutic Gardens: Design for Healing Spaces published by Timber Press.

Landscape architect Daniel Winterbottom, RLA, FASLA is a University of Washington Professor of Landscape Architecture. In 1995 he developed a design/build program, where he and his students work with communities to design and build projects that address social and ecological challenges and provide therapeutic environments for those struggling with traumatic experiences, incarceration, PTSD and other mental health issues.  Mr. Winterbottom developed and incorporates participatory design processes in these service-learning projects to create responsive design solutions for communities in need. His book Healing Gardens, co-authored with Amy Wagenfeld was released in 2015.  His awards include the Council of Educators of Landscape Architecture Outstanding Educator award, 2007, the University of Washington 2006 S. Sterling Munro Public Service Teaching Award, ASLA Honor Award for Community Service 2007, ALSA Honor Awards for Community Service 2018, 2017, 2016, 2013, 2011 and 2007, the EDRA/Places Great Places Book Award, 2016, EDRA/Places Great Place Design Awards2010 and 2019 and was inducted as a Fellow in ASLA in 2011.

Naomi A. Sachs, PhD, AIA, ASLA, EDAC is an Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture at the University of Maryland. She is Founding Director of the Therapeutic Landscapes Network and Co-editor of the peer-reviewed Health Environments Research and Design (HERD) Journal. Naomi earned a PhD in Architecture at Texas A&M University and a Master of Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley. She has published and presented nationally and internationally on the positive role of nature in human health and well-being. Among other publications, Naomi is co-author with Clare Cooper Marcus of the book Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces.

Jeff Carrol is the Co-founder and Principal at Urban Wood Economy.  He has participated with many partners to bring innovation through social enterprising and workforce development through scaled urban deconstruction and material reclamation . Specifically he was the creator of Details Deconstruction a Social Enterprise of Humanim which spun out a sister enterprise, Brick and Board. With low barriers to entry and the opportunity to gain many transferable skills, the deconstruction industry became a good choice in which to create enterprises designed to employ individuals and capture wealth from wood waste. Post-industrial cities like Baltimore, need quality, living wage jobs with benefits as a critical initial step to improving challenged neighborhoods held down by generations of oppression and injustice.. He is now taking the model nationally with Urban Wood Economy where the goal is to expand the enterprising model around urban wood harvested from buildings or from trees which fall in a city. Jeff lives in Baltimore with his wife Heather, holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and is a Legacy LEED AP.

Steve Freeman is Vendor Resource Manager at Room & Board, a National retailer of modern home furnishings. He joined Room & Board in 1980 and has been actively involved in sourcing, product design, merchandising and business development throughout his career. Room & Board is a founding member of the Sustainable Furnishings Council (SFC) where he served as President for 6 years. SFC works to bring change both to the home furnishings industry as well as its own business operations. Steve lives in Minnesota and holds a BSB from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Business in Business Administration with a BS in Sociology from the University of Minnesota.

Morgan Grove is a social scientist and Team Leader for the USDA Forest Service’s Baltimore Urban Field Station and is a lecturer at Yale University. He joined the USDA Forest Service in 1996 and has been a Co-Principal Investigator in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) since its beginning in 1997. Morgan has a B.A. from Yale College with a dual degree in Architecture and Environmental Studies, a M.F.S. in Community Forestry from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Social Ecology from Yale University.

Julie Stevens is an Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Iowa State University, where she has developed an innovative student design-build service-learning program. Beginning in 2011, Stevens has established a multi-year partnership with the Iowa Department of Corrections to create therapeutic environments for prisons, including gardens for prison staff and incarcerated individuals. The team of Iowa State students, prison staff and incarcerated individuals at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women (ICIW) received the Award of Excellence in Community Service from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 2015 for the ICIW outdoor classrooms and a decompression deck and the 2018 ASLA Award of Excellence in Community Service for the Children’s Garden, a visiting garden for incarcerated women and their visitors. Stevens is a contributor to Design as Democracy: Techniques for Collective Creativity, Island Press.

Patti Lund (Wachtendorf) retired as the first female Warden from the Iowa State Penitentiary (ISP) after 38 years in the correctional field.  Her experience includes 20 years working with females and 18 years with maximum-security males.  She was instrumental, as the Warden, in programming, planning and construction of the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women (ICIW), a state of the art women’s facility that opened in 2013.  The Iowa Department of Corrections partnered with the Iowa State University (ISU) to develop and build non-traditional prison landscaping at ICIW and ISP.  Her experience with both males and females includes restrictive housing, gender responsivity, promoting and supporting culture change and leadership development. She traveled to Kosovo as part of an Iowa team in March 2018 to present on “Rehabilitating and Reintegration for Extremists”.  She earned her BS in Law Enforcement Administration/Public Administration in 1988 and her Masters in Law Enforcement Administration in 1993 from Western Illinois University.

Rebekah Mende is Vocational Trades Instructor at Maine State Prison. Mende has a MS in Food Systems & Society, a background in prison food reform and 5 years of experience in the private sector working with non-profits and Lettuce Grow in Portland, OR.

Since 2013 Patrick Connor has been employed with the Maine Department of Corrections. He started out as an officer in the housing units then transitioned to running a work crew that cares for the grounds and gardens. He is currently part of the Sustainability and Agriculture Program where he provides security knowledge and experience. He also manages our residential Habitat for Humanity project that is helping to build housing for the local community. Their goal for 2021 is to build 6 more house frame kits and 12 fully built sheds that will be finished onsite at a local Habitat development.

Shea Zwerver grew up on a small farm in southwestern Pennsylvania where her love for nature was nurtured. She attended Smith College in Northampton, MA where she sought to interweave her interests in people and nature and majored in Psychology with a minor in Landscape Studies. After college she interned at Morris Arboretum at the University of Pennsylvania where she simultaneously pursued a master’s in environmental studies. Today, Shea continues to connect people and nature in creative ways as seen through her creation of the Correctional Conservation Collaboration. Shea has previously held positions with The Nature Conservancy, Pennsylvania Horticulture Society, and Penn Institute for Urban Research.

Gregory Vinson Clegg, grew up in Lancaster, PA with his brother and sister. From a young age Clegg was exposed to outdoor and tree work through his father’s landscaping business. Clegg loved going to work with his father. He hated school and did not do very well due to a learning disability. He also didn’t like authority. As a result, things began to go downhill, he began to get into the streets and hang out with the wrong people. This led to his first juvenile placement for three months. Upon release he continued with the same behavior which led to another juvenile placement where he spent 9 months then went through the cycle yet again. Running the streets day and night selling drugs which Clegg realizes today was only poisoning his community and youth. At 22 years old he was charged with the aggravated assault with a firearm and was sentenced to a 14 year sentence. In the first 5 years of his sentence he lost both his mother and father. During his time in prison he made a conscious decision to change his life and realized it started with his way of thinking. He worked hard on himself and in the last 4 years of his sentence he spent it at the Forestry Camps at SCI-Rockview. There he learned a lot of things which reignited the passion he once had for tree work and landscaping. The one thing he worried about all those years in prison was getting out and providing for his daughter’s. Upon the first week of his release he got in the tree care industry and has been working as a tree climber since. As a free man and law-abiding citizen Clegg is working hard to provide for his family and is happy. Two years later, he is beating the odds of recidivating.

Julie Stevens is an Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Iowa State University, where she has developed an innovative student design-build service-learning program. Beginning in 2011, Stevens has established a multi-year partnership with the Iowa Department of Corrections to create therapeutic environments for prisons, including gardens for prison staff and incarcerated individuals. The team of Iowa State students, prison staff and incarcerated individuals at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women (ICIW) received the Award of Excellence in Community Service from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 2015 for the ICIW outdoor classrooms and a decompression deck and the 2018 ASLA Award of Excellence in Community Service for the Children’s Garden, a visiting garden for incarcerated women and their visitors. Stevens is a contributor to Design as Democracy: Techniques for Collective Creativity, Island Press.

Amy Wagenfeld, PhD, OTR/L, SCEM, FAOTA is Lecturer in the Boston University Occupational Therapy Program and Principal of design +cOnsulTation. She is a fellow of the American Association of Occupational Therapy. She expands her role as an occupational therapist into the world of landscape architecture. Her work focuses on collaborative design, programming, and research of outdoor environments that support physical and emotional rehabilitation and learning in community and healthcare settings. Amy presents and publishes widely on topics relating to collaboration with designers and access to nature. Amy has served on the design team for three American Society of Landscape Architecture award winning therapeutic gardens, is recipient of a silver medal from the International Association of Universal Design, a Center for Health Design award, and two New York state design awards. She is co-author, with Daniel Winterbottom, of the award-winning book, Therapeutic Gardens: Design for Healing Spaces published by Timber Press.

Dr. Barb Toews is Associate Professor in criminal justice at University of Washington Tacoma. Her research focuses on the relationships among criminal/restorative justice, architecture and environmental design, and psycho-social-behavioral-judicial outcomes for victims, offenders, and justice professionals. She has taught restorative justice and design courses inside correctional facilities and co-founded Designing Justice+Designing Spaces (DJ+DS), an initiative that engages incarcerated individuals in the design of justice spaces that promote accountability and victim and offender healing. Barb has numerous publications related to restorative justice, including its relationship to design.

Landscape architect Daniel Winterbottom, RLA, FASLA is a University of Washington Professor of Landscape Architecture. In 1995 he developed a design/build program, where he and his students work with communities to design and build projects that address social and ecological challenges and provide therapeutic environments for those struggling with traumatic experiences, incarceration, PTSD and other mental health issues.  Mr. Winterbottom developed and incorporates participatory design processes in these service-learning projects to create responsive design solutions for communities in need. His book Healing Gardens, co-authored with Amy Wagenfeld was released in 2015.  His awards include the Council of Educators of Landscape Architecture Outstanding Educator award, 2007, the University of Washington 2006 S. Sterling Munro Public Service Teaching Award, ASLA Honor Award for Community Service 2007, ALSA Honor Awards for Community Service 2018, 2017, 2016, 2013, 2011 and 2007, the EDRA/Places Great Places Book Award, 2016, EDRA/Places Great Place Design Awards2010 and 2019 and was inducted as a Fellow in ASLA in 2011.

Tony Hall is the Garden Educator at the Franklin County Jail, and lives in Franklin County MA, where class offerings include organic farming, accessible nutrition, herbalism, and small business start-up. Tony holds a degree in Sustainable Food Systems Education from UMASS Amherst, and three permaculture design certificates. He has recently given workshops at the Northeast Organic Farming Association, and Farm-to-Institution New England, conferences, and also facilitates workshops on mycology in Western Massachusetts.

Abrah Dresdale, M.A., is an educator, curriculum designer, and a consultant in the fields of social permaculture, food systems, and prison food justice. She is on faculty in the Sustainable Food and Farming program at University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Omega Institute. She was founding Faculty and Program Coordinator of the Farm and Food Systems program at Greenfield Community College. She brought components of the program into the Franklin County House of Corrections—where she is now the Jail-to-Farm-to-College & Employment Program Coordinator. As a core organizer of the emergent Northeast Prison Food Justice movement, she has curated conference tracks on the subject at Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA), Farm-to-Institution New England (FINE), and Northeast Prison Garden Educators Collaborative. Abrah is author of Regenerative Design for Change Makers: A Social Permaculture Guidebook and the Director of Regenerate Change. www.abrahdresdale.com; www.regeneratechange.com

Matt DelSesto is co-organizer and co-host of the Conference on Social and Ecological Infrastructure for Recidivism Reduction.

Kelli Bush co-directs the Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP), a partnership founded by The Evergreen State College (Evergreen) and Washington State Department of Corrections (WA Corrections) to empower sustainable change by bringing nature, science, and environmental education into prisons. Kelli oversees all Evergreen-led programs, primarily SPP’s conservation and environmental education initiatives. She works with co-director Stephen Sinclair, also Secretary for WA Corrections, to lead more than 180 SPP sustainability and nature programs statewide and disseminate the model internationally. At Evergreen, Kelli provides leadership for a team of twelve staff who coordinate programs, providing direct service and facilitating learning exchanges in the prisons. Prior to joining SPP in 2010, she gained over 15 years of horticulture and restoration ecology experience and earned a B.A. in Agriculture Ecology from The Evergreen State College.

Daniela Jauk, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Akron, Ohio. She received a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Graz, in her home country of Austria. She completed her doctoral work in Sociology as a Fulbright student at the University of Akron/OH, specializing in Qualitative Research Methodologies and Sociology of Deviance and Gender Studies. She worked as an applied sociologist in for Oriana House Inc. from 2018-19, gaining in-depth experience with corrections research, mixed-methods research projects, and grant writing. This is where she initiated a pilot project for women and several grant applications to introduce and assess the potential of horticulture for health and wellbeing in carceral settings. She continues to expand this research in collaboration with national research partners.  

William Jett is the inaugural Fleet Manager at GrowNYC, working to develop its fleet safety program. He has worked for GrowNYC for 9 years, starting out as a volunteer and then hired as a Compost Coordinator and compost/textile driver until his recent promotion. William was released on parole in January 2011 after 26 years in prison. While incarcerated, he attended and then graduated from Bard College in 2010 with a BA degree. He has since graduated from NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service with a Master of Urban Planning degree in 2016.  

Christine Lynn Norton, PhD, LCSW, is a Professor of Social Work at Texas State University. She received her Ph.D in Social Work from Loyola University Chicago. She has a Master of Arts in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago, and a Master of Science in Experiential Education from Minnesota State University-Mankato.  She has taught as adjunct faculty at The University of Denver, Prescott College, and Naropa University. Her areas of practice and research interest and expertise are in innovative, experiential interventions in child and adolescent mental health; outdoor behavioral healthcare; experiential education and adventure therapy; positive youth development; foster care support in higher education; and international social work.

Erika Rumbley is a grower specializing in greenhouse production, organic land care and cut flowers. Erika leads The New Garden Society’s Development and Program Evaluation work, and gardens alongside students in a prison yard south of Boston on Monday afternoons. Beyond TNGS, Erika serves as the Director of Horticulture at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Erika is a graduate of Vassar College, with an Honors BA in Environmental Studies and is the recipient of numerous fellowships including the Helen Dwight Reid Fellowship for service on The Crow Indian Reservation. Since her first farm apprenticeship in 2005, Erika has grown cut flowers, fruit and vegetables on farms in New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. She honed her skills as a grower as the Greenhouse Manager at Langwater Farm from 2014-2017. In a parallel vein, Erika has served a range of land-based non-profits as a facilitator and adult educator, including Southside Community Land Trust, Boston Natural Areas Network and The Trustees of Reservations.

Amanda is passionate about working with social justice organizations and has a special interest in criminal justice reform, including efforts to expand quality educational opportunities for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. As Program Director, she supports IGP Program Managers at eleven California prisons. She is also helping to develop IGP’s “reentry bridge” doing outreach to Bay Area, Central Valley and Southern California employers and community organizations to provide ongoing support for IGP’s alumni. Amanda is a certified professional coach and consultant who works with social change leaders and nonprofits in the Bay Area and beyond. She has an extensive background in progressive philanthropy and transformational leadership development through her work with the Funders Collaborative for Youth Organizing, the Women Donors’ Network, Rockwood Leadership Institute and Communities for Public Education Reform (CPER). Amanda was a past facilitator in training with the Victim Offender Education Group at a women’s prison in Chowchilla, CA. She is an affiliated coach with RoadMap, Rockwood Leadership Institute, the Haas Flexible Leadership Award and on the faculty of Leadership that Works. Amanda is on the board of UnCommon Law who provide pro-bono representation to people going to the parole board in CA.