Felix Rosado

Felix Rosado is a cofounder and co-coordinator of Let’s Circle Up, a restorative justice project based at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Graterford. Originally from Reading, Pennsylvania, he has been fighting a death-by-incarceration sentence for 23 years, since age 18. He also coordinates the Alternatives to Violence project and is a member of the Inside Out Prison Exchange Program Graterford Think Tank. Since 2008, he has developed and facilitated hundreds of experiential workshops on topics including restorative justice, nonviolence, compassionate listening, trauma healing, forgiveness, drugs and addiction, and the impact of incarceration on families. In 2016, he earned his BA in interdisciplinary studies from Villanova University. He seeks to end the practice of caging humans until death

J. Michael Lyons

J. Michael Lyons is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. His teaching, research, and creative work focus on narratives related to social justice issues, particularly mass incarceration. He is the cofounder of The Redemption Project, a multimedia oral history website that records and shares the stories of men and women serving life-without-parole sentences in Pennsylvania and their families. He is also active in the criminal justice reform movement.

Carol Zou

When Carol Zou was growing up in subsidized university housing as the child of first-generation Chinese immigrants, she read The Fledgling by Jane Langton and convinced the rest of the children in the apartment complex that if they practiced hard enough, they could collectively learn how to fly. She is still learning how to mobilize collective action around public space, imagination, and liberation from structural oppression. She is the current Director of Programs at Asian Arts Initiative. Carol received her BFA from Cornell University with minors in Urban Planning and Gender Studies, and her MFA in Public Practice from Otis College of Art and Design. She has participated in fellowships and residencies from Intercultural Leadership Institute, National Art Strategies, Women’s Center for Creative Work, Common Field, University of Chicago Place Lab-Rebuild Foundation, and University of Houston College of the Arts-Project Row Houses.