Erin L. Castro is an assistant professor of higher education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Utah. She is also an Instructor Affiliate with the Education Justice Project of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which provides higher educational opportunities to students who are incarcerated at the Danville Correctional Center in central Illinois. Dr. Castro’s work seeks to expand the specific responsibility of public higher education in an increasingly divided and unequal society. Her research examines material and discursive barriers to quality postsecondary education for systematically disadvantaged populations, including incarcerated and justice-involved individuals, and has been published in the Review of Higher Education, Education Policy Analysis Archives, and the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. Dr. Castro is also a member of the strategic organizing committee to establish the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison.

Michael Brawn was born in New York City and raised in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, and Barrington Hills, Illinois. After graduating high school in 1989, he briefly attended Arizona State University (ASU). Following ASU, he worked in the trade publishing industry as an advertising salesperson on electronic engineering and consumer electronics publications. In 2005 Brawn was sentenced to twenty years in prison. While incarcerated, he earned an associate in science degree and became certified as an associate addictions professional. He teaches substance abuse classes, serves as a peer educator, and continues his own educational journey.