Cyrus is a researcher and advocate with more than a decade of experience working against mass incarceration and for racial and social justice and currently serves as ASJ’s Senior Research Associate. He recently served as a Research Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Danforth Center for Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, where he taught courses about U.S. history, race, religion, and politics.

Holly is our State Policy Manager and is an experienced organizer, researcher and advocate who supports the Alliance’s state campaigns by analyzing policy and conducting research.   

Prior to joining the Alliance, she worked on a range of justice-related policy initiatives, including efforts to close private prisons, address racial disparities in policing, end low-level arrests, eliminate employment discrimination against people living with past convictions and advance public health alternatives to incarceration for drug possession. 

Holly lives in Austin, Texas, where she is an adjunct faculty member at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas-Austin and a member of the city’s LGBTQIA+ Quality of Life Commission.

Iesha began her career in Human Resources as a recruiter and currently serves at the People Operations Specialist for ASJ. Her most recent position prior to joining the Alliance was as an associate consultant at Nonprofit HR. Iesha graduated from Howard University with a degree in Sports Management in 2014. She received a masters degree in HR Management from the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) in 2019. In 2021, she earned an MBA from UMGC. Iesha received her SHRM-CP credentials from the Society for Human Resource Management in 2020. Originally from upstate New York, Iesha has lived in metropolitan Washington, DC since 2009.