Leadership

LEADERSHIP

Dr. Anita Wadhwa (she/her)

Executive Director, Co Founder

A native Houstonian, Dr. Anita Wadhwa is the Executive Director of Restorative Houston, whose mission is to train a multigenerational network of peacekeepers who build community and repair harm in all Houston neighborhoods. After receiving her doctorate from Harvard, she published Restorative Justice in Urban Schools. Under her leadership, Restorative Houston operates the only community‑built restorative practices certification program in Texas, grounding restorative justice in the lived wisdom, cultural strengths, and leadership of Houston’s own communities.

Wadhwa learned about restorative justice from students and teachers in Boston, as well as her mentor Janet Connors, the first woman in Massachusetts to initiate victim offender dialogue with one of the men who murdered her son Joel. Upon returning to Houston, she created a youth-led model of restorative justice that was featured on National Public Radio and by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. She owes everything to her parents, husband, and two lovely girls.

Perla Moreno (she/her)

Programming and Marketing Manager

Perla is a Mexican-American Trauma-informed Empowerment Coach and Restorative Justice Practitioner with 10+ years of social justice work in the nonprofit sector. Raised in Houston, she loves this city and dreams of seeing it become a haven for restorative justice. She brings her knowledge through lived experience in holding compassionate, healing-centered spaces for individuals navigating trauma, systemic harm, and identity-based oppression.

She is passionate about social equity, community care, and helping others reclaim voice, dignity, and wholeness through culturally responsive and spiritually grounded approaches. She holds a degree in Psychology and currently serves as the Programming & Marketing Manager at Restorative Houston.

Uyiosa Elegon (he/him)

President, Board of Directors

Uyiosa Elegon is an Edo person residing on the homeland of the Karankawa, Coahuiltecan, Atakapa-Ishak, and the Sana people of Texas’s Gulf Coast region (now referred to as Houston, Texas). He is a director at Shift Press, a media organization that provides news and journalism trainings that encourage Houston youth civic engagement.

He is also a Community Outreach Organizer at Texas Appleseed, a research and policy advocacy organization focused on social, racial, and economic justice. Uyiosa’s prior experience includes working on electoral and issue-based campaigns, producing West African cultural events, and facilitating various youth civic education projects and initiatives across the U.S.

Maricarmen Garza (she/her/ella)

Vice President, Board of Directors

Maricarmen Garza (she/her/ella) is a fronteriza who has called Houston home since 2006. Her approach to justice and healing is shaped by her borderlands roots, her legal advocacy, and her belief in the power of community to repair harm. Maricarmen serves as Chief Counsel for the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence, where she oversees policy, program, and financial management to advance the Commission’s mission of mobilizing the legal profession to increase access to safety and justice for survivors of gender-based violence. In this role, she serves as a key resource on gender-based violence and the law, advising ABA leadership, attorneys, judges, legislators, and the media, and guides national program activities, budgets, and policy initiatives.

Before joining the ABA, Maricarmen was Chief of Programs at the Tahirih Justice Center, where she led multidisciplinary efforts to protect immigrant women and girls fleeing violence. She previously spent more than a decade with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, providing complex family law representation and directing impactful projects. One of them is the Legal Alliance for Survivors of Abuse, a long-standing collaboration that ensured trauma-informed, holistic services for survivors across 68 Texas counties. Across her roles, Maricarmen is committed to survivor-centered advocacy, racial equity, and building systems that honor people’s full humanity. She is the proud mother of three children who continually remind her of the world she is working to help create: one grounded in accountability, connection, and collective care.

Brooke Crawford (she/her)

Treasurer, Board of Directors

Brooke Crawford is a strategic finance and philanthropy leader with extensive expertise in structured finance, foundation governance, and international poverty reduction initiatives. She has a proven track record of guiding boards through fiduciary responsibilities, capital market access, and long-term organizational sustainability.

Brooke is skilled at designing innovative financial strategies that expand organizational capacity while ensuring compliance, accountability, and alignment with mission. She is deeply committed to advancing equitable global development and fostering community-focused impact.

Dr. Larry Brown, Jr. (he/him)

Secretary, Board of Directors

Dr. Larry D. Brown Jr. is the Associate Director of the Community Health and Violence Prevention Services Division at Harris County Public Health. With over 20 years of experience across government, academia, non-profits, and community leadership, he began his Harris County career in 2006 at Protective Services for Children and Adults (now Resources for Children and Adults), later serving in Budget Management and Juvenile Probation departments. A committed public servant and practitioner-researcher, Dr. Brown’s mission is to improve well-being and promote equity in the communities he serves.

He earned his PhD in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Wisconsin, focusing his research on the intersections of education, carcerality, race, ethnicity, class, gender, and ability, and their impact on school disciplinary policies. Inspired by family and lived experiences, Dr. Brown is a graduate of the 4th cohort of the Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy at the University of Chicago Crime Lab. In addition to his role at Harris County, he serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Amiyah Yates (she/her)

Youth Member, Board of Directors

Amiyah Yates serves on the Restorative Houston Board of Directors with a passion for making change and uplifting young voices. She joined to help create opportunities for youth to be heard, gain experience in leadership, and take part in work that many her age don’t often get to do.

Amiyah’s goal is to bring youth together in ways that inspire unity and growth — starting with her community and expanding to everyone around her. An alumnus of the Sisterhood Circle Fellowship, she has facilitated circles with youth in disciplinary alternative education programs and other nonprofits.

Angel Jackson (she/her)

Board of Directors

Angel brings her knowledge and lived experience to help youth. After aging out of care at 18 she realized her mission to inform the community on issues concerning dual status youth and provide children with resources for their wellbeing.

Angel is a Community Health Worker with the University of Houston as well as a Peer Specialist certified through Foster Club. She is a strong advocate for youth justice and racial equity.

Dorit Price-Levin (she/her)

Board of Directors

Dorit Price-Levine is a licensed attorney-mediator and a professional facilitator, specializing in supporting people to speak effectively across their differences on polarizing and divisive topics. Trained in Transformative Mediation and Non-Violent Communication, Dorit has worked with hundreds of institutions across the country. Her clients have included national nonprofits, corporations, universities, government agencies, and communities of faith. Previously a Senior Associate at the Consensus Building Institute and Deputy Director of

Resetting the Table, Dorit designs and leads communications skill-building workshops and facilitates conversations across divides. Dorit’s chosen path, promoting justice by bringing diverse groups together to explore their differences, was inspired by her experiences living for years in Palestine, Israel, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Dorit holds a JD from the UC Berkeley School of Law and a B.A. in Political Science and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Swati Narayan (she/her)

Board of Directors

Swati Narayan was born in Houston, Texas to immigrant South Asian parents. Her childhood experiences informed her views on justice and the right for all to have access to quality education and life opportunities. She attended public schools, and then the University of Texas and University of Houston. She has worked in the nonprofit sector both in India and in her home city of Houston focusing her efforts on underserved women, children, and underrepresented communities and is currently the Director of Community Safety. Swati serves on the Board of Directors for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Planned

Parenthood Gulf Coast, Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, and on the Advisory Board of University of Houston’s Friends of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, and is an active volunteer in gun violence prevention efforts. Self-motivated and always challenging herself and others to continually delve deeper, Swati is an optimist at heart. Her activism is inspired by the resiliency of the human spirit. She looks forward to a day where people and organizations thrive by embracing and valuing differences in order to foster belonging. Swati is the mother of three sons and resides with her husband and their rescue dog, Aspen.

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