BPI Summer Residency

Jeffrey Abernathy

Professor of English, Alma College, MI

Jeff is a professor of English at Alma College in Michigan. He served 15 years as president of Alma College, and last year left the role to start a college-in-prison program at Carson City Correctional, where he has been teaching for the last year. He is on sabbatical through fall 2026, building the program and working on a book project. Jeff is dad to Rohan, 21, a senior at the University of Michigan, and Maren, 16, a senior in high school.

Molly April

Program Assistant, BCPEP, Boston College, MA

Molly joined the Boston College Prison Education Program as the Program Assistant in December 2024. She has previously worked in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors in Boston since 2017. She has a background and interest in organizational effectiveness and community engagement work.

Patrick Bannon ’21

Patrick Bannon is a justice-impacted person who spent over 31 years in the New York State carceral system. He holds a BBA in Advertising from Baruch College and also earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), where his comprehensive senior project examined the harmful effects of locker-room talk and its role in perpetuating discursive violence against women. An original member of the BPI Acting Ensemble, he continues to pursue acting opportunities in NYC, driven by a commitment to storytelling and social justice. Patrick’s journey is a testament to the transformative power of education and the human spirit’s capacity for growth and redemption.

Karina Biondi

Professor and Coordinator of college-in-prison program, State University of Maranhão, Brazil

Karina holds a doctoral degree in Social Anthropology from Federal University of Sao Carlos (UFSCar). She wrote “Sharing This Walk: An Ethnography of Prison Life PCC in Brazil” (winner of the APLA 2017 Book Prize).

Darryl Byers-Robinson ’15

Site Coordinator, Georgetown University Prison and Justice Initiatives, Georgetown University, DC

Darryl Byers-Robinson has built an inspiring career dedicated to education and criminal justice reform. After earning his Liberal Arts degree through the Bard Prison Initiative, he has worked tirelessly to support incarcerated individuals and underserved communities. His advocacy spans multiple roles, including serving as a Program Director for a therapeutic youth program, a Pastor at three Pennsylvania ministries, and an advisor to Pennsylvania colleges on higher education in prison programs.

Sandra Brown

Director of Training & Education, Women's Justice Institute, WISE (Women Incarcerated Seeking Education), IL

Sandra Brown is the Director of Training & Education at The Women’s Justice Institute located in Chicago, Illinois. She received a MA in Humanities from California State University-Dominguez Hills in 2016, and her scholarly research focuses on the impact of Archetypal Criticism and Social Deterrents on the Heroine’s Journey. As a visiting scholar with The Women’s Justice Institute, she wrote a policy paper regarding recommendations to support higher education degree programs in Illinois women’s prisons; a paper that helped facilitate the return of college programs to women’s prisons. In February of 2025, she presented alongside her colleagues at the Women in Corrections Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, about The Women’s Justice Institute’s WJP model. Corinne is also on the National Center on Domestic Violence Trauma and Mental Health Advisory Board and a doctoral student at California Coast University.

Eilaf Elmileik

Reentry Program Coordinator, Bard Prison Initiative, Bard College, NY

Eilaf Elmileik is the Reentry Program Coordinator for the Bard Prison Initiative. She began working for BPI in April, following a career in student affairs, sexual misconduct prevention, and harm reduction at Yale University, from where she also graduated with a B.A. in Sociology. Eilaf is from Rochester, Minnesota by way of Khartoum, Sudan. She is now thrilled to be a Hudson Valley resident and to support a college-in-prison program.

Catalina García

Inclusion Director, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Catalina Garcia is a Chilean educational psychologist. She has always worked in contexts that seek equity and respect for diversity because she believes more opportunities can and should be open. She has carried out university teaching, research projects, and professional intervention, working with teachers, families and gifted students, students with disabilities, migrants, indigenous people, and students from academically deprived contexts, among others. Since 2014, she has been Director of Inclusion at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, leading actions for access, academic and emotional support, curricular adjustments, and monitoring. In 2020, she joined an initiative that supports women in prison for their access to higher education, and in 2022 it became an unprecedented program in Chile, located at Inclusion Directorate. The ELEDUC program continues to grow and plans to accompany 46 women in 2025. Catalina loves her husband and two sons, and lives happily with them and their dogs, cats, and birds.

Fairleigh Gilmour

Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Otago, New Zealand

Fairleigh Gilmour was until recently the only lecturer to teach at a tertiary level ‘inside the wire’ in an Aotearoa New Zealand prison. She is developing a prison teaching initiative at the University of Otago in New Zealand and several colleagues have now joined her in teaching at the local prison. Higher education offerings for incarcerated students in New Zealand are very limited. Fairleigh co-organizes a collective of educators and stakeholders across New Zealand who are trying to increase higher education opportunities for incarcerated students and are working towards ensuring full degrees can be completed by incarcerated learners. 

Emily Guenther

Director, Liberal Arts in Prison Program, Grinnell College, IA

Emily Guenther has been the Director of the Prison Program at Grinnell College since 2008, immediately after she graduated from Grinnell. She was leader of the Liberal Arts in Prison (LAPP) student group doing education work while she was enrolled at Grinnell, and has been thrilled to develop a college program since then. LAPP now offers college courses at its original site at Newton Correctional Facility, a medium-security men’s prison, and expanded to the state’s only women’s prison in 2022. She is excited to finally make it to the BPI Residency!

V Hoy

Assistant Director, EPEP, The Evergreen State University, WA

V Hoy is the Assistant Director of the Evergreen Liberation Education Network at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. The network’s newest initiative, the Evergreen Prison Education Program (EPEP), offers a Liberal Arts BA pathway to scholars incarcerated at Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, WA. V comes to liberation education work with a background in harm reduction, particularly with people who use stigmatized drugs, people experiencing homelessness, and survivors of intimate and structural violence.

Glynda Hull

University of California, Berkeley School of Education, CA

Glynda Hull is Associate Dean and Professor of Education at the University of California, Berkeley and Faculty Director of  Berkeley’s Center for Teaching and Learning.  She spearheaded the creation of an undergraduate degree in education at UC Berkeley, and has been a longtime teacher of undergraduates and a mentor of graduate students.  Early on, she taught middle school and high school English and college-level writing.  Her research interests center on teaching and learning in digital spaces and university, school, and community collaborations.  

Spencer Hunt

Assistant Director of Moreau College Initiative, Holy Cross College, IN

Spencer Hunt is Assistant Director of the Moreau College Initiative (MCI) at Holy Cross College, Notre Dame.  He first joined MCI as a volunteer and then writing instructor while completing his doctoral work in Medieval Studies at Notre Dame.

Alyssa Knight

Executive Director, Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, WA

Alyssa Knight is cofounder and current director of the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound. While incarcerated, she helped build the college program and has continued to be an active participant as a student, alum, guest lecturer, and now administrator. After release, she went on to graduate with a degree in gender studies from the University of Washington and has worked hard with state organizations and the Disability Rights of Washington to enact new laws and policies that protect incarcerated trans and gender non-conforming people while ensuring that they can access quality, gender-affirming care. In the face of an ever-changing political landscape, she continues to advocate for equitable access to social capital-building opportunities for all students caught in the carceral system.

Shari Mackinson

BPI/Morehouse Faculty Fellow and Assistant Director AYC-HEP, Morehouse College, GA

Shari Mackinson is the newly appointed BPI/Morehouse Faculty Fellow and Assistant Director of Higher Education in Prisons Program in the Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership at Morehouse College. In this role, Shari will recruit faculty and student ambassadors for the program, provide oversight in the facility, liaise with corrections staff, and serve as an academic advisor to students.

Lisa Magee ’24

Program Coordinator, Bard Microcollege For Just Community Leadership.

Lisa is a writer and graduate of Bard College. Born and raised in Chicago, she now respectfully calls Brooklyn home. As the program coordinator for the Bard Microcollege for Just Community Leadership, Lisa supports students as they navigate the nebulous waters of higher education while surviving life in the Big City. She takes delight in making her friends laugh and in her free time likes to be a charming guest at a delicious dinner party.

Bethany Nohlgren

Director of Student Affairs, Bard Microcolleges, Bard College, NY

Prior to joining the team at BPI, Bethany was the Associate VP of Student Affairs/Dean of Students at the Bard College Annandale campus where she led the student affairs team to build and coordinate support structures for students in housing, counseling, health, social-emotional support, supplemental academic advising, student activities, and crisis counseling. She holds a BA in Sociology from Earlham College and an MA in Higher Education Administration from Boston College. Prior to Bard, she worked at other small liberal arts colleges in student engagement and leadership.

Julie Olive

Coordinator, Piedmont Virginia Community College Higher Education in Prison Program, VA

Julie Olive is the Coordinator for Piedmont Virginia Community College’s Higher Education in Prison Program. She provides program support to incarcerated students across 3 prisons in central Virginia pursuing their Associate Degree in General Studies. Before becoming the coordinator for PVCC’s program, she was an adjunct professor of communication studies, teaching public speaking and communication for the program. She is dedicated to expanding access to higher education to incarcerated individuals in Virginia, specifically advocating for access to equitable technology in Virginia prisons.

Magdalena Fellner

International Center for Higher Education Research, University of Kassel, Austria

Magdalena Fellner is Senior Researcher and head of the research area ‘Students and Graduates’ at the International Center for Higher Education Research (INCHER), University of Kassel in Germany. She is Post-Doc Track Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and Associate Editor of the Journal Tertiary Education and Management. Her research primarily focuses on education and social inequality, widening participation, student equity, recognition of prior learning, and community engagement among students.

Adam Quinn

Assistant Professor, Piedmont Virginia Community College Higher Education in Prison Program, VA

Adam Quinn is an Assistant Professor of English at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He currently teaches English Composition, American Literature, and African American Literature classes at Dillwyn and Buckingham Correctional Centers in Central Virginia.

Charles Rosario

Program Coordinator, Emerson Prison Initiative, Emerson College, MA

Charles Rosario is the Program Coordinator for the Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI), where he supports EPI’s work both inside and outside prison. He advocates for higher education in carceral spaces as well as for creating more pathways for returning citizens to access higher education on traditional college campuses and works to connect returning citizens to reentry services. This work includes providing direct one-on-one case management to returning citizens, and helping expand EPI and its Reentry and College Outside Program (RECOUP). As a 2022 alumnus of Emerson College through EPI, it is his experience as a formerly-incarcerated person that fuels his

KeWee Roselle

Liberation Scholars Program Lead, The Evergreen State College, WA

La’Keisha “KeWee” Roselle is a co-founder of The Black Rose Collective. The creation and name were inspired by her love for soil, seed, and the soul and how it correlates to the human spirit. The symbolism behind the black rose holds true to KeWee in a significant way. Like TBRC, and why it was established, she too has overcome paralyzing obstacles and represents optimism, new beginnings, power, and hope. In 2018, KeWee was legally liberated from the carceral system after 13.5 years and knows first-hand the impacts of oppressive systems, generational incarceration, poverty, addiction, and trauma. Social forces, incarceration, and addiction devastated KeWee’s family throughout four generations and are some of the motivating factors of why she dedicates herself to the movement. “If my family and community members were properly resourced and had the tools to focus on internal healing, the trajectory of thousands of lives would have been saved because they would have been able to live in their brilliance.” Kewee’s dedication to healing generational trauma is evident in the gentle care, patience, and loving support she extends to her own little one.

Samantha Simonsen

Administrative Coordinator for Prison Education Programs, Prisons and Justice Initiative, Georgetown University, Washington DC/MD

Samantha Simonsen is the Administrative Coordinator for prison education at the Georgetown University Prisons and Justice Initiative. In her role, she supports the Prison Scholars Program the the D.C. Jail and Georgetown’s Bachelor of Liberal Arts Program at the Patuxent Institution in Maryland. Samantha holds a B.A. from Georgetown University in History, with a minor in Justice & Peace Studies.

Patrick Stephens ’19

Patrick Stephens is a Leadership Fellow at the Center for Community Alternatives, freelance writer for The Appeal magazine, board member of Columbia Reentry, and Advisory Council member of the Children’s Defense Fund. He is also an adjunct member of the New York City Bar Association’s Mass Incarceration Task Force and sits on its Corrections and Community Reentry Committee. As a systems impacted person, he is an avid restorative justice practitioner and advocate for trauma informed care. As an alumni of both the Bard Prison Initiative, where he earned his BA degree, and New York Theological Seminary, where he earned his Masters degree, he is a public speaker, consultant, and advocate for prison abolition.

Emilia Thornton

Program Assistant, Yale Prison Education Initiative, CT

Emilia is a Program Assistant for YPEI at Dwight Hall. She graduated in 2024 from Wesleyan University with a double major in Mathematics and History. Before joining the YPEI team, Emilia worked with the Wesleyan Center for Prison Education for two years and as an intern with the Vera Institute. Emilia has a deep passion for education and carceral reform and is thrilled to be a member of the YPEI team.

Madison Zickgraf Burke

PhD Student in English Literature Stanford University Stanford Jail and Prison Education Program, CA

Madison Zickgraf Burke is pursuing a PhD in English Literature at Stanford University. Her research interests include American 20th and 21st century literature, autobiographical fiction, pedagogy, and critical carceral studies. She currently teaches a course at San Bruno Jail, focused on making a magazine for incarcerated artists in the Bay Area. Before grad school, she spent 3 years working with Rhodes College Liberal Arts in Prison Program.