Romarilyn Ralston, Director, Project Rebound, CSU Fullerton (CA)

Romarilyn Ralston, MA. Education is the best practice to reduce crime! Incarcerated at 24, I knew that if things were to be different in my life, I needed to do things differently. For me, that was education. I earned a Bachelor’s degree with honors from Pitzer College in Gender and Feminist Studies in 2014, a Master’s degree in Liberal Arts from Washington University in St. Louis in 2016, and was selected to be a 2014-2015 CORO Public Affairs Fellow. While attending Washington University, I was awarded the Mary McLeod Bethune 2016 Leadership Award, given to a graduate student who “through leadership, service, scholastic achievement, and perseverance has served as an inspiration to the University community.” I was an invited panelist on Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Access to Higher Education Challenge Event at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law in 2016, was the 2016 keynote convocation speaker of the Prison Education Program at Missouri Eastern Correctional Center, addressing thirty-eight incarcerated males on “How People Like Me Receive Degrees." I was a 2017 Leadership Fellow with the JustLeadershipUSA Leading with Conviction program in New York City, and am currently a Fellow of the Women's Policy Institute.