IPNO Staff
Jee Park | Meredith Angelson | Charell Arnold | Alex Cahill | Zac Crawford | Huy Dao | Richard Davis | Gwen Dilworth | Cat Forrester | Leora Greene | Kiah Howard | Ayyub Ibrahim | Libra LaGrone Pealer | Jack Largess | Sandra Levick | Kirschelle McGowan | Caitlin Newswanger | Moni G. Sakamoto-Talavera | Virginia White
Jee Park (she/her)
Executive Director
Jee Park has served as IPNO’s executive director since June 2018. Prior to joining IPNO in January 2017 as the senior attorney for policy, Jee served as the deputy district defender of Orleans Public Defenders (OPD) from 2014-16. She joined OPD in the spring of 2008 as a supervising attorney then directed OPD’s Special Litigation Division from 2009-14. Prior to OPD, Jee worked as a staff attorney at The Bronx Defenders in New York and was a Prettyman Fellow at the Juvenile Justice Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center.
After college, Jee worked for Equal Justice Initiative. Jee also served as a law clerk to Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; graduated from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law; received an LL.M in clinical advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center; and graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
Meredith Angelson (she/her)
Director of Special Projects
Meredith Angelson is the director of special projects at IPNO. She formerly worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s New Orleans office as a senior staff attorney in criminal justice reform and as a staff attorney at the Orleans Public Defenders. Meredith clerked for Judge Robert Sweet of the Southern District of New York. She is a graduate of New York University School of Law and Yale College.
Charell Arnold (she/her)
Supervising Attorney for Case Development
Charell Arnold is the supervising attorney for case development with IPNO. She has been with IPNO since 2013.
Charell graduated from Tulane Law School and was awarded the Order of the Barristers. She also holds a BA in English language and literature from the University of Chicago.
During law school, Charell was a summer law clerk with the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana and the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as a student attorney for the Tulane University Juvenile Clinic. Charell worked as a staff investigator with the Orleans Public Defenders Office for several years before attending law school.
Alex Cahill (she/her)
Investigative Fellow
Alex Cahill joined IPNO as an investigative fellow in February 2022. Alex is a graduate of George Washington University where she studied global development and Spanish. During her four years in the Washington D.C. area, Alex became interested in criminal justice reform through her advocacy and volunteer work with the Petey Greene Program. In this role, she supported the academic goals of incarcerated students through tutoring and GED preparation.
Zac Crawford (he/him)
Staff Attorney
Zac Crawford is a staff attorney with IPNO. Prior to law school, Zac worked at IPNO as case review manager and a junior investigator. He graduated Order of the Coif from Washington and Lee School of Law in 2019 and Bowdoin College in 2012.
During law school, Zac was a summer law clerk with the Southern Center for Human Rights, attorney Rob McDuff, and Chief Justice John Weimer of the Louisiana Supreme Court. Zac was a student attorney in the Criminal Justice Clinic and Executive Editor of the Law Review. Before returning to IPNO, he clerked for Judge Madeline H. Haikala of the Northern District of Alabama.
Huy Dao (he/him)
Case Manager
Huy Dao started as the case manager in October 2015. Prior to working at IPNO, Huy was the case director at the Innocence Project, where he managed the Intake & Evaluation Department from 1997-2015.
Huy graduated from Cornell University in 1997 and received an Master of Fine Arts in writing from the New School in 2000.
Richard Davis (he/him)
Legal Director
Richard Davis came to IPNO for a four-month internship in 2005 and has remained ever since.
Richard obtained a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Sheffield in 2004. He obtained his Master of Law degree from Loyola University New Orleans in 2011 while working at Innocence Project New Orleans.
Gwen Dilworth (she/her)
Program Coordinator, Unjust Punishment Project
Gwen Dilworth rejoined IPNO in August 2021 as a program coordinator. Previously an Avodah Fellow at IPNO, Gwen returns to us from Orleans Public Defenders, where she served as a client advocate. Gwen holds a BA in American Studies from the University of Virginia with a concentration in Southern Studies.
Cat Forrester (she/her)
Managing Director
Cat Forrester is IPNO’s managing director. She interned at IPNO from 2013-2014 before joining the staff in January 2016. Prior to joining IPNO, Cat worked as a client and court support administrator at Orleans Public Defenders. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts in cultural anthropology from Brown University and her Master of Arts in sexuality studies at San Francisco State University.
Leora Greene (she/her)
Program Assistant
Leora Greene is an Avodah Corps Member working with IPNO as a program assistant in client services. She graduated from Colorado State University in May 2022 with her Bachelor of Science in Psychology and minors in Political Science and American Sign Language.
Senior Investigator
Kiah Howard is an investigator who started at IPNO in May 2018. Prior to joining IPNO, Kiah spent almost five years as an investigator at the Orleans Public Defenders.
Kiah is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison where she studied political science and international studies.
Senior Research Associate
Ayyub Ibrahim is a senior research associate who joined IPNO in November 2020. Ayyub, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, has previously supported criminal justice research programs in the United States, Africa, and the Middle East.
Libra LaGrone Pealer (she/her)
Director of Development
Prior to joining IPNO, Libra LaGrone Pealer served as the finance/development manager at the Newcomb Art Museum, the deputy director/curator of Southern music at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art and has consulted independently for multiple arts and cultural organizations including Prospect 4, TEDWomen, and French Quarter Festival. Libra serves as a board member for A Studio in the Woods, an artists’ retreat center dedicated to science-inspired art education. She holds an MLA from Tulane University and a B.S. in Political Science from the University of North Alabama.
Jack Largess (he/him)
Staff Investigator
Jack Largess is an investigator who joined IPNO in October 2017. Jack received a Bachelor of Arts in geography from UNC Chapel Hill. His honors thesis studied the ways that housing policy limited the effectiveness of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system’s court-ordered desegregated plan. Before joining IPNO, he volunteered at a migrant shelter in Mexico and interned with the Mecklenburg County Public Defender’s office in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Sandra Levick (she/her)
Senior Staff Attorney
Sandra joined IPNO in 2022 as a senior staff attorney following six years at the Mississippi Innocence Project. She began her career in the District of Columbia at the Public Defender Service where she worked as a trial, appellate and post-conviction attorney. As chief of PDS’s special litigation division, Sandra was the lead attorney for four men whose exonerations served as the impetus for the FBI review of all convictions based on the junk science of hair microscopy.
Sandra is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and of Northeastern University School of Law.
Kirschelle McGowan (she/her)
Wrongful Conviction Clinic Supervising Attorney
Kirschelle McGowan received her Juris Doctor from Southern University Law Center in 2012 and was admitted to practice law in Louisiana in October 2012. During law school, Kirschelle worked as a student attorney in the Juvenile Defense Clinic and was a member of Law Review. Before joining IPNO’s staff in 2013, Kirschelle worked for Criminal Defense Attorney Julie C. Tizzard in New Orleans.
Kirschelle obtained a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice in 2006 as well as a Master of Science in criminal investigations in 2007 from Southern University and A&M College.
Caitlin Newswanger (she/her)
Staff Attorney
Caitlin graduated from Loyola University in New Orleans with Juris Doctor in 2019. Prior to law school, she worked as a social worker in several homeless shelters and street outreach teams in Pennsylvania and Virginia. She obtained her masters in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond Virginia.
Móni G. Sakamoto-Talavera (she/her)
Investigative Fellow
Móni became an Investigative Fellow after joining IPNO in March 2022 as an intern. She graduated from Loyola University New Orleans where she studied Criminology and minored in Digital Filmmaking. Móni was a member of Loyno’s SGA Court of Review and an intern at Metro Centers for Community Advocacy.
Client Services Specialist
Dr. Virginia White joined IPNO as the client services specialist in September of 2021. She completed undergraduate studies at Dillard University and received her Master’s in social work from Southern University at New Orleans. Virginia earned a doctorate in social work from Tulane University. She has presented at the National Summit on Eliminating Health Disparities and is a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) Minority Fellowship Program.
