Mary Ann Scali serves as the Executive Director of The Gault Center, where she works with youth defenders and advocates dedicated to promoting justice for all children by ensuring excellence in youth defense. After working as a summer law clerk for the National Juvenile Defender Center in 1996, Mary Ann became the deputy director in 2000 and the executive director in 2017.

In partnership with The Gault Center team and youth defense leaders, Mary Ann delivers youth defense training and technical assistance, conducts state-level youth defense assessments, and facilitates cross-disciplinary reform efforts aimed at developing resources and policies to strengthen youth defense and access to justice for all youth.

Prior to joining The Gault Center, Mary Ann defended youth in the juvenile division of the Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore City, MD; spent two years teaching high school in Pohnpei, Micronesia; served in the Jesuit Refugee Service in Rome, Italy; and taught Baltimore City boys at the Baraka School in Nanyuki, Kenya. Mary Ann holds a JD and MSW from Loyola University Chicago, where she was a CIVITAS Childlaw Fellow.

Ebony Howard is the Deputy Director for The Gault Center, where she works to serve youth defenders and advocates so that they may seek justice for children and adolescents and provide excellence in youth defense.

Prior to joining The Gault Center, Ebony was a Senior Supervising Attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, where she developed, implemented, and managed litigation and policy campaigns to combat injustice and systemic racism in the criminal and juvenile legal systems. She also defended individuals charged with federal crimes in District Court as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Northern District of Alabama. Ebony serves on the boards for Redemption Earned, an Alabama-based organization that assists incarcerated people seeking parole, and Youth Towers, a Birmingham, Alabama-based organization dedicated to supporting homeless youth ages 19 to 26.

Ebony graduated from Howard University and Georgetown Law. While at Georgetown, Ebony was a student attorney in the Juvenile Justice Clinic, where she represented young people before the District of Columbia Superior Court.

Ebony lives with her husband and two sons in Birmingham, Alabama, where she spends her days listening to Beyoncé and convincing her children to attend Howard University.

Jimmonique is the Director of Operations for The Gault Center. In this role, she manages the organization’s operations, including all remote operations, finance, and human resources, to ensure The Gault Center maintains effective and efficient financial and operational systems.

Before joining The Gault Center, Jimmonique served as interim director and deputy director for the State of Georgia’s indigent defense agency, the Georgia Public Defender Council (GPDC). The agency has more than 900 state employees and contracted private attorneys representing clients in 43 of the state’s 49 judicial circuits.  Prior to working at the agency executive level, Jimmonique led its statewide appellate division, working with staff and contract appellate attorneys to zealously represent both adult and youth clients in post-conviction proceedings.

Jimmonique is a proud graduate of Fayetteville State University and North Carolina Central School of Law. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia State University, focusing on youth justice, correlates of delinquency, and justice system policy.

Maria Bardo-Colon is the Youth Defense Fellow for the Gault Center.

Prior to joining The Gault Center, Maria was an Assistant Public Defender in the Juvenile Division of the Public Defender’s Office (Jacksonville, FL). She handled cases in delinquency and crossover (youth who have both open delinquency and dependency cases). During her time at the PD’s office she was also assigned to Girls Court and Mental Health Court. She also served on Disability Rights Florida’s PAIMI Advisory Council. She participated in the 2019 Summer Academy and is a 2023 Ambassador for Racial Justice.

Maria graduated from Boston College and The University of Alabama School of Law. While at Bama Law, she worked at Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program (ADAP) and was a student in the Children’s Rights and Criminal Defense Clinics.

Maria lives in Philadelphia, but was born and raised in Florida.

Amy Borror is the Senior Youth Policy Strategist at The Gault Center, where she manages the organization’s policy and communications portfolios.

Prior to joining The Gault Center, Amy worked as a youth defense consultant; spent 13 years at the Office of the Ohio Public Defender, where she led the agency’s Policy & Outreach Division and managed its legislative and media efforts; and worked at the Ohio State Bar Association and the Ohio General Assembly. Amy earned her BA magna cum laude with college and departmental honors from the University of Toledo.

Amy, her wife, and their numerous rescue dogs and cats recently moved to Athens County in Southeast Ohio.

Stephen Goldmeier is the Justice Systems Manager at the Gault Center, where he works on implementing and improving processes, technology, and systems to serve the Center’s staff and our national network of youth defenders.

Before joining the Gault Center, Stephen worked both as a public defender and as a technology and systems expert. He spent five years as an appellate public defender at the Office of the Ohio Public Defender, where he litigated cases involving both adults and youth in courts ranging from local municipal courts to the Ohio Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He then worked in the Policy and Outreach department of that office, leading the design and deployment of a unified state-wide data-collection and case-management system. After that, he worked for the Bronx Defenders and the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center at Southern Methodist University, managing many aspects of large-scale research, process-improvement, and technology projects.

Stephen has taught nationally about a wide variety of subjects, including legal writing, storytelling, systems design, data collection, and forensic science. He also serves in a leadership role in the Indigent Defense Research Association and works with many local activism and organizing groups in Columbus, Ohio.

Stephen received his bachelor’s degree in secondary education, with minors in chemistry and physics, from Otterbein University, and he graduated from DePaul University’s College of Law with a certificate in intellectual property law.

Stephen lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his cat, Lucky. He spends most of his time riding his bike around town, trying new restaurants, and visiting various local parks to look at birds.

Sarah Johnson is Senior Defense Counsel for The Gault Center, where she manages the provision of training and technical assistance to the youth defender community.

Prior to joining The Gault Center, Sarah was the Director of Specialty Practices, Director of Youth Defense, and head of the Children’s Defense Team for the Missouri State Public Defender System. Sarah began her work as a public defender in 2009 in St. Louis, representing both children and adults in the St. Louis Area. In 2017, Sarah became the Director of Youth Defense and Policy, and in 2019, the Children’s Defense Team (CDT) opened its doors. The CDT is a specialized group of attorneys, mitigation specialists and support staff that represent children in delinquency proceedings in the St. Louis and Kansas City Area. Sarah has served on several statewide workgroups across her career as a public defender, looking at ways to raise the level and practice of youth defense and advocacy in Missouri.

Sarah graduated from Saint Louis University as an undergraduate and law student. While at Saint Louis University, Sarah played for the women’s soccer team, where she was a member of the first women’s team at the university to make it to the NCAA tournament! In law school, Sarah participated on the moot court team, trial team, and criminal defense clinic, where her dreams of advocating for individuals was realized.

Sarah lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband, two children and silver lab. In her free time, Sarah loves to be outdoors: running, hiking, and camping with her family and friends.

HyeJi Kim is a Senior Youth Defense Counsel at the Gault Center, where she works to strengthen children’s rights by ensuring that every child facing juvenile court stands with a zealous attorney fighting on behalf of the child. HyeJi focuses on developing policy and legal strategies to fight against the effects of structural racism in juvenile court systems and on transforming probation conditions to uphold positive youth development and racial justice. To that end, HyeJi engages in training, technical assistance, and policy advocacy for youth defenders to heighten a child’s right to counsel across the country.

Prior to joining the Gault Center, HyeJi worked as an Attorney for the Child (AFC) in child welfare and juvenile delinquency proceedings at the Legal Aid Society in New York City. As an AFC, HyeJi worked on an interdisciplinary team to directly advocate for the expressed wishes of young people, including those who are caught between the intersection of the family regulation and juvenile delinquency systems. Before working at the Legal Aid Society, HyeJi worked as a fellow at the Gault Center, where she focused on national reform efforts around supervision fees and youth probation orders.

HyeJi graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and summa cum laude from the George Washington University.

HyeJi grew up in Oregon and now lives in Brooklyn and is an avid fan of vegan ice cream and Korean cooking.

Sinia Maile is the Operations Coordinator for The Gault Center. In this role, she assists in the organization’s operations including logistics, accounting, and organizational management.

Prior to joining The Gault Team, Sinia was an Office Administrator with the Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys and a Community Health Worker within her Pasifika Community. Her lived experience with the school to prison pipeline in her own family combined with her academic/professional career moved her to re-examine her positionality within her community and how she exists in social systems. This choice of life work has helped shape her perspective on how mobilizing communities within institutions can achieve social justice. This newfound passion moved her to join The Gault Center to defend youth rights. As a member of Gen-Z, a previous educator, and abolitionist she’s excited to learn more about making a difference within institutional systems from her fellow esteemed colleagues!

Sinia Maile is a graduate from the University of Utah majoring in Political Science with an emphasis in Law and Politics and a certificate in International Relations. She is currently a graduate student at The University of Utah in the Masters of Public Administration program hoping to advance her knowledge in systems change, social equity and justice. She hopes that this position and her education will prepare to be a future youth defender and community advocate.

Alana S. Meyer is Youth Defense Counsel at The Gault Center, where she ensures youth defenders have the tools and resources they need to provide zealous advocacy for all children.

Prior to joining The Gault Center, Alana was the George Barrett Social Justice Fellow Attorney at The Children’s Law Center. In this position, she created and implemented a strategic plan to identify and provide education advocacy to children with disabilities in Kentucky’s detention centers and alternative schools. Following her fellowship, Alana was a public defender specializing in youth defense at the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy. She occupied several positions including front-line defender for kids in juvenile and adult court, appellate attorney for juvenile appeals, and civil litigator on conditions of confinement for youth in long-term facilities and detention centers. Alana was also a part of the youth defense training team where she developed and presented training for all new and existing public defenders throughout Kentucky.

Alana graduated from Vanderbilt Law School, where she was the Garrison Social Justice Scholar for her class and was awarded the Damali K. Booker Award for her keen dedication to legal activism. She graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in Sociology.

Alana grew up in South Florida and now lives in Lexington, KY with her husband, daughter, and bulldog. She enjoys traveling, yoga, and running after her toddler.

Jen Mossgraber is the Justice Systems Assistant at the Gault Center, where she works to improve and strengthen systems across the Center’s work in order to serve the Center’s staff and our national network of youth defenders.

Before joining the Gault Center, Jen worked at the Missouri State Public Defender System (MSPD) as the Coordinator for Specialty Practices where she provided administration and mitigation support to the specialty teams. Jen was instrumental in creating systems for the St. Louis Children’s Defense Team and served as a liaison for other offices across the state.

Jen is a graduate of the University of Missouri, St. Louis, where she studied political science and public policy. While at UMSL, Jen completed fellowships with two national organizations focused on voter registration and civic engagement.

Jen lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her partner and is currently studying front and back-end web development with LaunchCode, an organization focused on diversifying the tech field. Jen also enjoys hiking, cooking, and painting.

Gavriella Roisman is Project Counsel at the Gault Center. She comes to us most recently as a Staff Attorney at Lone Star Justice Alliance for the Survivors’ Project advocating for child survivors of human trafficking; adult survivors of domestic violence, intimate partner violence, and trafficking; and youth who were tried in the adult criminal legal system and given draconian prison sentences. Gavriella has a background in education, special needs, and advocacy and has worked in multiple community organizations within Austin, Houston, and Los Angeles, with a focus on engagement and outreach. She previously served as Deputy Legal Program Director and Legal Clinical Supervisor at the Juvenile and Children’s Advocacy Project, as well as Adjunct Professor of the Street Law course, and helming the Education Rights Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center. Gavriella provided pro-bono legal services for youth in Fifth Ward in collaboration with the Center for Urban Transformation and Joel Androphy of Berg & Androphy, as well as working as a guardian ad litem and educational surrogate for youth with dual system status in Harris County.

Gavriella sits on the Harris County Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative Steering committee, Disability Rights Texas’ Reentry Committee, and the VOICES Advisory Counsel. She is also a member of the Houston Rescue and Restore Coalition, a division of United Against Human Trafficking. Gavriella has presented at the Harris County Juvenile Law Seminar, Texas Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Association, Texas Sunshines (University of Texas Austin), and Shared Hope International’s annual JuST conference; as well as led panel discussions on trauma-informed care for youth with dual-system status and clear concern youth within the foster care system. Gavriella was a contributor to professional and layperson advocacy publications through the Center for Children, Law & Policy. She continues to teach law and advocacy-based courses for high school students in both Houston and Austin.

Gavriella is a graduate of the University of Houston Law Center where she served as an Irene Merker Rosenberg scholar. At UHLC, she was awarded the Marvin D Nathan Fellowship at the Anti-Defamation League and the UHLC Clinic Program Ward for her work in the Civil Clinic, as well as the Yale Rosenberg Memorial Prize for legal writing. She is trained in Trust Based Relational Intervention through the Karyn Purvis Institute, which she applies in her work directly.