A visionary and inspirational leader of the criminal justice reform movement, Susan Burton is the author of the award-winning memoir Becoming Ms. Burton and the founder of A New Way of Life Reentry Project (ANWOL), which provides support to women who are rejoining their communities following incarceration. ANWOL’s approach to reentry work is internationally recognized as an innovative model that creates welcoming and healing spaces in which participants can develop as leaders and work toward liberation. Burton has received numerous awards recognizing the impact of her work and leadership. In 2010, she was named a CNN Top Ten Hero and received the prestigious Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is also the recipient of the Encore.org (now CoGenerate) Purpose Prize (2012) and the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award (2014), among many more. In 2018, she launched the SAFE (Sisterhood Alliance for Freedom and Equality) Housing Network to replicate A New Way of Life’s effective and humane reentry model. The network now includes more than 34 members located across the United States, Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya. It is through this work that she thrives, enjoying the realization of her vision, all while knowing how many individual lives she has touched and changed throughout her own journey. 

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