Alicia Cepeda Maule is the digital engagment director at the Innocence Project. In this role, she leads the organization in digital strategy and audience growth, revenue, and advocacy.

Alicia developed and led the digital strategy that helped stop the executions of Rodney Reed in Texas and Pervis Payne in Tennessee. She and her team have won more than 10 awards, including Webbys, Shortys, Tellys, the Clarence Jones Impact Award, and more. Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Alicia was a social media and community editor at msnbc.com and a digital organizer on President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Alicia graduated from Brown University in 2011 with a B.A. in Africana studies.

Christina Swarns is the executive director of the Innocence Project.

Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Christina served as the president and attorney-in-charge of the Office of the Appellate Defender, Inc., one of New York City’s oldest institutional providers of indigent appellate defense representation; as the litigation director for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice; as a supervising assistant federal defender in the capital habeas corpus unit of the Philadelphia Community Defender Office; and as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense division in New York.

Christina argued, and won, Buck v. Davis, a challenge to the introduction of explicitly racially biased evidence in a Texas death penalty case, in the United States Supreme Court. Christina was the only Black woman to argue in the 2016 Supreme Court term, and is one of the few Black women to have argued before the nation’s highest court. Christina earned a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. from Howard University.

She previously served as the president and attorney-in-charge of the Office of the Appellate Defender, Inc. , one of New York City’s oldest institutional providers of indigent appellate defense representation; as the litigation director of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice; as a supervising assistant federal defender in the capital habeas corpus unit of the Philadelphia Community Defender Office; and as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s criminal defense division in New York. Christina argued, and won, Buck v. Davis, a challenge to the introduction of explicitly racially biased evidence in a Texas death penalty case, in the United States Supreme Court. Christina was the only Black woman to argue in the 2016 Supreme Court term, and is one of the few Black women to have argued before the nation’s highest court. Christina earned a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. from Howard University.

Vanessa joined the organization in 2000 as its first staff attorney, and has helped pioneer the model of post-conviction DNA litigation used nationwide to exonerate wrongfully convicted persons. She is a nationally recognized expert on wrongful convictions and the use of DNA to establish innocence. In 2012, she contributed to the National Institute of Justice’s “DNA for the Defense Bar,” a report for criminal defense attorneys on understanding and applying DNA science in the courtroom.