Staff, Board & Student Leadership

Staff

Andrew Campbell, Classroom Support Coordinator

Andrew Campbell came to FEPPS after graduating with his BA from University of Puget Sound with a double major in Gender Studies and Religious Studies. As a student, he took a class that connects with FEPPS BA students at WCCW. Andrew now supports students and professors in the classroom and study halls, including making the most of the very limited computer tools available for education programs inside the prison.

Contact Andrew at andrewcampbell@fepps.org

Tanya Erzen, BA Program Director

Tanya Erzen is a founder, former Executive Director of FEPPS, and an Associate Professor of Religion and Gender Studies at the University of Puget Sound. She has been a 2013 Soros Justice Media fellow, a 2015 Hedgebrook Writer-in-Residence and a grant recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Social Science Research Council, American Association of University Women and the Mellon Foundation. Her most recent book is God in Captivity: The Rise of Faith-Based Ministries in an Age of Mass Incarceration (2017), which she lectures on widely as part of the Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau. She has a Ph.D. from New York University and a B.A. from Brown University. In addition to work with FEPPS, she is involved in the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison (AHEP), the National Conference for Higher Education in Prison and advocacy efforts around gender and incarceration.

Contact Tanya at erzen@fepps.org

Nadra Fredj, Student Support Coordinator

Nadra Fredj began working for FEPPS in 2023 as part of their practicum for a Masters of Education in Student Development Administration at Seattle University. Now a part-time employee, Nadra’s work with FEPPS covers various components of academic and student affairs. She previously worked as an academic advisor and instructor at the University of Washington, Seattle; where she received a B.S. in Psychology and B.A. in Law, Societies, and Justice. Nadra’s emphasis in their graduate program is on abolitionist teaching and liberatory praxis, which she is expected to complete in Summer 2024. They are passionate about student identity development and agency, as well as examining the interconnection of U.S. formal education with systems of power and oppression.

Alyssa Knight, Executive Director

Alyssa Knight is a co-founder of Freedom Education Project of Puget Sound, and helped create and facilitate gender identity education workshops inside of WCCW to encourage a more informed and positive environment for gender non-conformance inside the prison. She has a degree in gender studies from the University of Washington, and worked on a research project involving the WCCW archive exploring how gender is constructed through prison policies and carceral ideology. In her free time, she works with Yoga Behind Bars teaching workshops inside youth facilities. She is a part of the Critical Inquiry Collective which recently worked on a year long reading and writing project with both formerly incarcerated people and professors to examine the afterlives of long prison sentences. Alyssa also serves on the Incarceration, Gender & Justice Committee of the Washington State Supreme Court Gender and Justice Commission, and is a co-founder of Beyond Bars & Binaries, a nonprofit that supports non-binary and transgender people inside Washington prisons and during transition back to community.

Contact Alyssa at alyssaknight@fepps.org

Deb Sheehan, Program Operations Manager

Deb Sheehan joined the FEPPS staff in 2023, and previously worked at a paralegal for employment and family law firms. She was previously incarcerated at Washington Corrections Center for Women, and worked as a law clerk inside WCCW during that time. Through her experience, she is deeply passionate about using her skills and experience to improve the supports and resources available to people returning to community from prison. Deb has a BA degree in Law and Justice from Central Washington University, and serves on the board of the Formerly Incarcerated College Graduate Network.

Contact Deb at debsheehan@fepps.org

KeWee Roselle, Administrative Coordinator

Contact KeWee at records@fepps.org

Board of Directors

Laura Birx, Board Treasurer

Laura Birx is the senior director of global climate strategies at the Climate Leadership Initiative (CLI). She has worked for two decades in the public and philanthropic sectors at the intersection of food systems, agriculture, public health, nutrition, and climate change. Prior to ClimateWorks, Laura was the deputy director of strategy, planning, and management on the agricultural development team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she led a multi-year effort to establish the foundation’s first climate adaptation strategy. She first came to FEPPS as a guest lecturer at WCCW, sharing the foundation’s work supporting women’s leadership around the globe. She also worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development to help build the Feed the Future Initiative in Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. Laura has a BA from Colby College and a master’s degree in public health from the George Washington University.

Jeff Conner, Board Secretary

Amanda Dubois

Amanda DuBois is managing partner of the Dubois Levias law firm specializing in family law. She received her Bachelors of Science in Nursing at Pacific Lutheran University and Law Degree from Seattle University. She served as a member of the Washington State Association for Justice (WSAJ) Board of Governors where she co-founded the Women’s Section, and served as chair of the Family Law Section. She has also authored a series of books that teach basic legal rights and responsibilities to ordinary people called the Civil Survival Series. In addition, she is the past President of the Board of the Women’s Funding Alliance, a Seattle-based foundation focused on economic justice and leadership for women and girls.

Robin Jacobson

Robin Jacobson is a professor at the University of Puget Sound, where she teaches a range of courses in U.S. politics including courses on race, religion, state politics and the politics of detention. Her research focuses on immigration, including the role of race in immigration politics, the debate over birthright citizenship, the relationship between the labor movement and immigration politics, and state laws about immigration. Robin was one of the founding faculty of FEPPS. In addition to teaching at the prison, she was also a founding member of the board, a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee for the FEPPS BA program, and returned to the board in 2023.

Priti Joshi, Board President

Priti Joshi is a Professor at the University of Puget Sound where she teaches in the English department, as well as in the Asian Studies and the Gender & Queer Studies programs. She is committed to bringing higher education to those who have been marginal to the enterprise: from directing the Rutgers College Equal Opportunity Fund summer program for first-year students to directing Rutgers University's "Basic Writing" program, she has worked to ensure that underrepresented students are armed with the tools to succeed in higher education.

Starr Lake

Starr Lake is a founder of FEPPS, and was student from the beginning of the program until 2021. As a FEPPS alumni, she brings her lived experience and a uniquely valuable perspective to the FEPPS board.  Starr currently work as a full-time dog groomer, for which she trained while working at the Prison Pet Partnership inside WCCW. 

Max Likin

Max Likin brings an international perspective to FEPPS. He has a Ph.D from Rutgers University and has taught at the Harvard Committee on Degrees in History and Literature as a postdoc. He is currently completing a history of human rights in twentieth-century France. He started volunteering for FEPPS to teach global and European history, and continues with student advising. He collects official data and NGO reports from the European Union to promote validated gender-responsive practices at the Department of Corrections in Washington State.

Kelly Olson

Kelly Olson is the Policy Manager for Civil Survival, a nonprofit organization that organizes system-impacted people, provides legal representation, and advocates for policy reform to restore opportunity to communities harmed by the criminal legal system. After leaving prison in 2007, Kelly used education and volunteering in her community to help rebuild her life. She graduated from The Evergreen State College in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and an emphasis in communications and public policy. She graduated from the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy in 2013 with an Executive Master’s in Public Administration. Prior to Civil Survival, Kelly worked for the Washington Student Achievement Council, where she worked as a state regulator in postsecondary degree authorization. Kelly has been appointed by the Thurston County Commissioners to the Thurston County Law & Justice Council, serves on the advisory council for the Husky Post – Prison Pathways (HP3) at the University of Washington Tacoma, and What’s Next Washington’s Employment Advisory Council. Kelly also is involved with national organizations like Unlock Higher Ed and the Formerly Incarcerated College Graduate Network.

Student Advisory Council

FEPPS’s paid staff team works in co-leadership with a Student Advisory Council made up of current students and graduates who collaborate on teacher training, new student orientation, classroom expectations, curriculum development, and academic enrichment and community-building activities, .

Current Advisory Council Members

Anousheh A.

Tatiana B.

LeAnne B.

Lisa K.

Amanda K.

Asaria M.

Viviana R.

Bonnie T.

Tiana W.