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Our Mission

The mission of the Restorative Justice Center is to create opportunities for people to connect on deeper levels by sharing stories, engaging in deep listening, and developing respectful relationships, and community-based strategies for responding to conflict and harm. When harm occurs, we offer processes for understanding impacts and needs, and taking accountability in ways that result in transformation and repair. We believe that an increased emphasis on these principles and practices in our communities can improve climate, equity and inclusivity, and reduce harm in the short and long terms.

To complete this mission, we collaborate with partners across the UC campus and Bay Area to provide education, research, trainings and services in Restorative Justice and Restorative Practice. Through these efforts, we are building a sustainable network of RJ leaders, practitioners and supporters to increase capacity in the RJ field, build intentional communities of care, and facilitate restorative responses to conflict and harm caused by social justice inequities.

About Us

Julie Shackford-Bradley

Dr. Julie Shackford-Bradley is the co-founder and Director of the Restorative Justice Center at UC Berkeley. She has 15 years experience teaching in Global Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies, with a research focus on traditional and community-based justice, and intersections of RJ, human rights and social change. In her work with the RJ Center, she designs and facilitates services, programs and trainings in RJ and Restorative Practices and related areas, such as racial healing and conflict transformation, together with RJ Students Leaders, and fellow RJ practitioners at UCB, in the Bay Area, and across the UC system. She also teaches two courses in Legal Studies, Restorative Justice and Truth and Reconciliation.

Our Team

Co-founder and Director

Mythis Abraham Zamalea

RJ has the power to even begin a conversation about changing the seemingly eternal system of institutional punitive justice. I want to become a forensic psychiatrist with a focus not only on the origins and possible prevention of certain crimes done by criminally insane persons, but I am also interested in those by Black and Brown who feel they need to enter the "fast life" to solve the problems society has left them.”

Mythis’ Favorite Quote: I came. I saw. I conquered. -- Julius Caesar

Undergraduate Student Leader | Psychology, Letters and Sciences, 3rd Year

Shealyn Massey

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Undergraduate Student Leader |

Ramsay Boly

RJ Facilitator

Ramsay is a Burkinabe-American whose values and identities draw from a global spectrum of cultures, epistemologies, and practices. Ramsay is a recent graduate from UC Berkeley's Master of Development Practice whose work links development with social justice and spirituality. This roots in his exposure to global social and economic inequities that have largely been influenced by histories of colonialism and intersecting hegemonic systems that continue to perpetuate exploitation, oppression, and inequality. His counterwork focuses on self-cultivation and mindfulness practice, narrative practice, restorative justice, conflict transformation, collaborative impact, ethnic studies, decolonization, mentorship and youth empowerment.

Elias Nepa

Undergraduate Student Leader

Elias is working on a few projects focused on sexual violence/harassment prevention and response. They are interested in a lot of things and are mainly concerned with anti-colonial, anti-imperial scholarship and projects, revolutionary feminisms, race, class, and gender, and sexual/intimate partner violence. RJ’s focus on accountability and harm reduction really appeal to them.  RJ follows a life-affirming logic and provides an alternative to the really pervasive carceral, punitive, and colonial logics that are in our everyday society. They think that’s really cool. 

RJ Graduate Student Leaders

Community Manager | Master of Public Affairs (MPA) Candidate,  Goldman School of Public Policy

Stephanie Rivers

Graduate Student Leader | Master of Social Welfare (MSW, 2nd Year), UCB School of Social Welfare
Concentration: AWELL (Advancing Health and Well-being across the Adult Lifespan)

Hagikah (hi-kikah) V. Birden

Graduate Student Leader | Master of Social Welfare (MSW, 2nd Year), UCB School of Social Welfare  
Concentration: Strengthening Organizations and Communities

Andrew Guerrero

Graduate Student Leader | Master of Social Welfare (MSW, 2nd Year), UCB School of Social Welfare Concentration: AWELL (Advancing Health and Well-being across the Adult Lifespan)

Rosa Kang

Graduate Student Leader | Master of Social Welfare (MSW, 1st Year), UCB School of Social Welfare Concentration:  Strengthening Children, Youth and Families, School of Social Welfare

Zaineb Siddiqee

Undergraduate Student Leader | Political Science & Legal Studies,  Letters and Sciences, 4th Year

Jonathan Dombro

Undergraduate Student Leader |  Computer Science and Philosophy, Letters and Sciences,  1st Year

Pragya Kallanagoudar

RJ Undergraduate Student Leaders

“The practice of restorative justice in public policy is essential to creating more equity in our world. After 17 years as a senior nonprofit management leader, I am hoping to use this work, and the amazing knowledge I am gaining at Goldman to inspire more meaningful philanthropy and thoughtful diversity and equity initiatives at the corporate level."

Stephanie's Favorite Quote:  “You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people if you don't serve the people.”― Cornel West

“I love that restorative justice emphasizes our shared humanity by connecting one another across differences.  Right now, I’m just following my interests and gifts. Hopefully, they will lead me somewhere where I can make an impact and use RJ in my work.”

Hagikah’s Favorite Quote: A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.” -- Desmond Tutu

“I am interested in restorative justice because it is a means to access alternatives to accountability that are not in line with carceral systems. I hope that whatever my career trajectory has in store for me, that I will be able to center the importance of prevention, restoration, compassion, and mutual growth especially within marginalized communities.”

Andrew’s Favorite Quote: "Patriarchy does not care if men are unhappy" -- Bell Hooks

“I believe that addressing conflict and harm through the relational lens of restorative justice can be healing and transformative for communities and systems to become more just, equitable, and inclusive. Because of this,  I hope to pursue a career in medical social work.  “

Rosa’s Favorite Quote: “Relationships move at the speed of trust, but social change moves at the speed of relationships.”  
-- Rev. Jennifer Bailey from The People's Supper

“RJ is important to me because it allows every person to bring their authentic, real self to the conversation. RJ brings empathy, compassion and a reminder that everyone is human. RJ builds connections with people despite differences and adversity. In the future, I want to apply my RJ skills to become a school social worker! I love working with students and watching them grow into the amazing people they are.”

Zaineb’s Favorite Quote: "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us work together" -- Lilla Watson

“Restorative justice represents a framework for understanding and addressing harm that is badly needed in our world. The fundamental ideas that support the practical work of RJ are not new, but the implications that restorative justice has for the bigger problems in our society are valuable and powerful. As I go through life, I plan to embody and share with others my dedication to the values of RJ. Through doing so, I hope to bring some more peace to the world. I plan to go to law school next year to become a public defender and potentially a civil rights lawyer.”

Jonathan’s Favorite Quote: I still don't know what it really means to grow up. However, if I happen to meet you, one day in the future, by then, I want to become someone you can be proud to know. --Makoto Shinkai

“Like Aristotle, I believe that virtue can be learned through consistent practice. I believe (perhaps quixotically) that anyone has the ability to become a proficiently moral person with guidance and effort. Restorative justice is important to me because it is directly committed to holding people who have harmed others accountable, and helping them better their intentions and actions. I'm hoping to pursue grad school in computational social science/technology ethics/moral psychology or something of that nature! Ultimately, I want to spend my time making tech more ethical and inclusive, especially as it's playing a larger and larger role in high-stakes decision making processes.”

Pragya’s Favorite Quote: "With our thoughts we make the world." - Buddha