our Team

Our Story
The Remedy Project was founded by David Simpson, who spent 10 years in Federal Prison learning the administrative remedy process and made it his personal mission to continue that advocacy on the outside. Alongside David, The Remedy Project is co-directed by Anna Sugrue, a Barnard College graduate who met David at Columbia University while she was an undergraduate organizing students around prison issues, and David was enrolled in a program for formerly incarcerated scholars. Led by David’s vision and expertise and assisted by Anna’s campus organizing experience, they launched the Remedy Project (then known as the Student Justice League) in January 2020.
Our Community
Today, The Remedy Project is made up of hundreds of young people across the country, and thousands more system-impacted people and supporters. Based on campus-based chapters currently at Columbia University, Binghamton University, Yale University and Cherry Creek High School, and at our national hub, student leaders and volunteers drive our work. Their strategy is developed with and alongside our formerly incarcerated mentors, our members, and their families. Our team is national, distributed, non-hierarchical, and founded on powerful inside-out relationships. 

Active Chapters

Your school could be next! If you are interested in starting a chapter at your school, contact us at admin@theremedyproj.org.

Board of Directors

Dr. Valeria Saladino
Criminal Psychologist & Criminologist

Dr. Valeria Saladino is a clinical psychologist/criminologist with a PhD in Developmental Psychology and PostDoc in Clinical Psychology at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio in Italy. She is interested in addiction, sexual offending, and the use of new technologies in the field of treatment, on which she has published articles and books. She works as a professor at the University Mercatorum of Rome and a psychologist in adult Italian Correctional Facilities. She was on the founding team of The Remedy Project while a visiting scholar at Columbia University.

Indrani Nicodemus Rivera
Criminal Legal & Prison Reform Advocate

Indrani Nicodemus Rivera is a dedicated criminal legal and prison reform advocate. As an event producer,  she focuses on raising awareness, fundraising and building community for various criminal legal organizations. Most notably, Indrani produced events for the Innocence Project, JLUSA and the Fortune Society. She holds membership on The Remedy Project board and with Parole Preparation Project's Anti-Racist Working Group. She is an Emerson College alumni, received a Navigator Certificate in Human Services and Community Justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and completed NYS Peer certification training.

Catherine Sevcenko
Attorney

Catherine Sevcenko is the Senior Legal Counsel at the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. Catherine leads national legal campaigns in partnership with law firms and law schools to end the incarceration of women and girls, including clemency campaigns, civil rights litigation, preventing the construction of new prisons, and reallocating funds to community development.

Selwyn Jones
Activist, Advocate, Speaker, and "Uncle" of the Movement

Selwyn Jones is a activist, advocate,  speaker, and "uncle" of the racial justice movement. Selwyn grew up in the Jim Crow South, where he experienced extreme racism, poverty, and oppression throughout his childhood. When he turned on the television On May 25, 2020 to see his nephew George Floyd being murdered by a Minneapolis Police officer, he quickly realized what he experienced his whole life needed to come to an end. Following his nephew’s death Selwyn made it his life mission to put an end to police murder and violence by carrying on his Nephew’s story and advocating for systemic reform, including,joining the board of The Remedy Project in the fall of 2024.

Jonathan Wrenn
Junior at the Columbia University School of General Studies

Jonathan Wrenn is a student member of the Board of Directors and a junior at Columbia University’s School of General Studies, majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. His passion for criminal justice reform is deeply personal, rooted in his experience of being adopted after his biological parents were incarcerated due to substance use disorders. This has motivated him to advocate for systemic changes, aiming to prevent the separation of families due to incarceration.

The Remedy Project is currently recruiting new members to expand the board of directors.
If you're interested, please email anna@theremedyproj.org

Our Lawyers

Al Brooks
Attorney, Co-Founder/Co-Lead Organizer of Unlock the Bar

Al Brooks (he/him) is an organizer, attorney, and co-founder/co-lead organizer of Unlock the Bar. Al pursues transformative justice with a Black Queer Feminist lens. Al is an Adjunct Professor of Law Practice at Tuskegee University. Al has worked at or interned for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Phillips Black, Inc., the Legal Defense Fund, the Bronx Defenders, the Capital Appeals Project/Promise of Justice Initiative, and the Legal Aid Society of New York. During law school, Al directed the NYU Law Prison Teaching Project. Al has also organized with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, BYP100, and the Black Freedom Project of New York. He received his J.D. at NYU School of Law in 2021, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar, and received his B.A. from Swarthmore College in 2016.

Tasleemah (Tolu) Lawal
Attorney, Fellow at the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law and NYU Law School

Tolu Lawal (she/her) is one of two volunteer lawyers for The Remedy Project. She is a fellow at the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law and NYU Law School. Prior to joining the Center, she was a Racial Justice Legal Fellow with the New York City Commission on Human Rights, working on legislative and policy analysis, public education and community collaboration, legal research and restorative/transformative justice through a race-specific focus. While a student at NYU Law, she served as the Co-Chair of the Black Allied Law Student Association (BALSA) and one of the lead organizers of the Racism Lives Here Too campaign. She worked at the Center as an intern in 2017, as well as an intern at the ACLU Racial Justice Project in 2018, and with NYU's Juvenile Defenders Clinic from 2018 to 2019. She also engages in advocacy, supporting Black and Brown-led groups committed to charting the road to liberation for all people, particularly those who are formerly incarcerated. She currently provides legal support to the Justice Impact Alliance. She is also a co-founder and co-lead organizer of Unlock the Bar (UTB), a New York-based campaign and coalition of allied and systems-impacted law students and lawyers who are advocating for a just and equitable legal profession. She received her J.D. from New York University Law School in the Class of 2019 and received her B.A. from Duke University in 2014. 

Become a Mentor
We are always recruiting more formerly incarcerated jailhouse lawyers, prison paralegals, and law clerks to join our team and mentor our students. Contact us to learn more.
Contact Us
Intern With Us
We have student interns join us each semester and each summer. Currently our internship positions are unpaid, but we are happy to assist you in securing funding from your school. To apply, email a resume and cover letter to admin@theremedyproj.org
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