Dr. Niaz Kasravi

Dr. Niaz Kasravi is a national expert and advocate on criminal justice, social justice, and racial justice – with more than seventeen years of experience leading projects across the country. She is Founder and Director of the Avalan Institute for Applied Research – a research, advocacy, and training institute. She is the former Director of the Criminal Justice Program for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). At the NAACP, she led several successful initiatives including campaigns to: abolish the death penalty in Maryland; enact stronger anti racial profiling laws in New York City; and help free a wrongfully convicted man from a life sentence in Georgia. She is also author of several reports on racial profiling and police accountability. Her career includes serving as Researcher & Associate for Amnesty International USA, Deputy Director of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, and Policy Associate for Stop Prison Rape. Dr. Kasravi holds a Ph. D. in Criminology, Law & Society from the University of California, Irvine. In 2000, via a National Science Foundation grant, she traveled to Iran to work with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi on women’s rights in Iran. Dr. Kasravi was born in Iran and migrated to the U.S. with her family in 1984. Though her work takes her across the country, she currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.