Niki Martinez is a leading social justice advocate and organizer dedicated to ending mass incarceration and dismantling systemic injustices and the criminalization of women, gender expansive and trans people. Since her release in 2019, she has mentored countless individuals, been a leader in the Credible Messenger movement, while also working on key propositions and policies and continuing to advocate for folks inside of the women’s facilities. Currently, Niki serves as the Administrative and Organizing Director of Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition and continues to build Sister Warriors Chapters throughout the state. While incarcerated, she co-founded a youth-centered advocacy organization and holds certifications in trauma-informed care, relapse prevention, and restorative justice. Charged as an adult at 17 and sentenced to 45 years to life, Niki served 25 consecutive years inside the carceral system—experiences that drive her commitment to healing, justice and the continued fight against systemic gender-based violence and ending mass incarceration.

Susan Bustamente is a part of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and an advocate for ending Life Without Parole. Susan was sentenced to Life Without Parole (LWOP) and served 31 years. While incarcerated she co-founded CWAA, a battered women’s group, and was also a dog trainer and a member of the Veteran’s group Happy Hats. In 2018, Susan was the first person with an LWOP sentence to be released via a sentence commutation. Since her release, Susan continues to give back to her community by visiting and supporting incarcerated women and fighting for the end of LWOP through the Felony Murder Elimination project.

Elizabeth Lozano is a Latina artist who was born in Harbor City, CA and currently resides in Riverside, CA. In 2012 Elizabeth received her A.A. in Behavioral and Social Science with Honors from Feather River College. Elizabeth’s art was first exhibited in Central California Women’s Facility’s visiting store, the facility where she resided for 30 years serving a sentence of Juvenile Life without Parole. In 2024 the facility requested Elizabeth paint affirmations on the sidewalks and other spaces to uplift the community. Elizabeth has participated in several exhibitions and projects including: Return to Sender: Prison as Censorship, EFA Gallery NY, (2023); The Only Door I Can Open: Women Exposing Prison Through Art and Poetry, Museum of the African Diaspora, CA (2023); Work Assignments: Forced Prison Labor in the Land of the Free, several Bay Area locations(2023 & 2024); and the Involuntary Servitude Digital Billboard campaign for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, California,(2024)

Currently Elizabeth works for The Institute of the Arts and Sciences as a Prison Education Advisor where she develops art workshops and education programs for the women prisons in California and formerly incarcerated individuals, supports the reentry transition back to the community and aids in the development and promotion of art exhibitions and outreach programs.

Julissa O. Muñiz, PhD is an assistant professor of education in the School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Broadly, her scholarship examines how people and communities of color –specifically Latinx and Black communities– navigate, negotiate, and resist racialized organizations and systems of power such as the education, criminal legal, and juvenile legal systems. More specifically, Dr. Muñiz examines the conditions that both enable and constrain teaching, learning, and identity development in carceral contexts, with an interest in better understanding how youth, girls, women, and gender expansive individuals live and learn while confined. Importantly, her work uplifts the various ways individuals are always co-creating fugitive liberatory learning environments for themselves and others in spite of the carceral institutions they exist in. Most recently, Muñiz was an assistant professor of psychology with affiliation in education and the Visualizing Abolition Program at UC Santa Cruz.

Dr. Muñiz earned her Ed.M. in prevention science and practice from the Harvard Graduate School of Education; her M.A. in human development and social policy from Northwestern University; and her B.A. in ethnic studies from UC Berkeley. Her training and research have been generously supported by the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, Spencer Foundation and the National Academy of Education, Social Science Research Council, and the University of Texas at Austin’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. Dr. Muñiz is a first-generation borderlands scholar from San Ysidro, California. In 2021, she founded the San Ysidro Rising Scholar Award, a scholarship and mentorship program that supports first-generation college students from her alma mater, San Ysidro High School. Before entering graduate school, Muñiz was a middle school academic counselor for TRIO Talent Search in Oakland, California, and a GED co-instructor for the Adult Peer Education Project at San Quentin State Prison.