Staff & Board of Directors

Robin M. Maher, Executive Director

Robin M. Maher has extensive experience in the death penalty field, both domestically and internationally. She has worked in the federal defender system, at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as a Professorial Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School since 2010. For thirteen years she was Director of the American Bar Association (ABA) Death Penalty Representation Project, where she oversaw the creation of the 2003 ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases. For more than twenty years, Ms. Maher has also spoken at international legal conferences and trained lawyers and judges around the world.

Full Bio for Robin M. Maher »
 

Anne Holsinger, Managing Director
Anne Holsinger’s work related to capital punishment began in 2004, volunteering as part of efforts to reform Virginia’s use of the death penalty for juveniles. As an undergraduate, she conducted independent research on the role of religious rhetoric in death penalty argumentation. She came to DPI in 2010 as Special Projects Assistant and worked as an Information and Resource Specialist before becoming Managing Director in 2018. As Managing Director, she has implemented a staff supervision structure, overseen DPI’s project to launch the Death Penalty Census, and worked to align DPI’s hiring and management processes with best practices for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Anne earned a B.A. in Linguistics from the College of William & Mary.

Dane Lindberg, Digital Director
Dane Lindberg joined DPI as Digital Director in August 2015. They led a multiyear modernization project to rebuild and re-platform DPI’s 20-year-old website. This effort involved moving thousands of content pages and documents and enlisting the support of Foster Made to modernize the design and management workflow of DPI’s website. Dane also led the development of DPI’s sentencing database that eventually developed into the Death Penalty Census, an ongoing project to document every death sentence in the United States since 1972. Additionally, they are responsible for editing and publishing DPI’s monthly podcast, Discussions with DPIC.

Prior to joining DPI Dane spent over a decade working as the Creative and Digital Director for a public relations firm focused on supporting national and local non-profit organizations. In this role they oversaw the development of various advertising campaigns, websites, podcasts, social media strategy, and other projects for a range of clients. Dane earned B.A. degrees in Political Sciences and Classics from the University of Southern California.

Tiana Herring, Data Storyteller
Tiana Herring is the project lead for DPI’s Racial Justice Storytelling project, which explores the racial history of the death penalty in various states through in-depth reports and visualizations. In addition to researching and writing each report, she works closely with a wide range of external stakeholders to understand the death penalty landscape in targeted states. She helps DPI fulfill its mission of educating the public by participating in media interviews and presenting at conferences and webinars. She also plans and creates content for DPI’s social media channels.  

Tiana has expertise in a wide range of criminal justice issues. Her previous work often focused on the important drivers of mass incarceration including the war on drugs, felony theft thresholds, parole denials, and cash bail. Her work has been cited by legislators and courts at the state and federal levels, and in numerous publications including The Guardian and The Atlantic. Tiana holds B.A. degrees in Political Science and Contemporary European Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Nina Motazedi, Program Specialist
Nina Motazedi studied International Conflict Analysis and Resolution and Psychology at George Mason University. For her undergraduate honors thesis, she conducted an interdisciplinary experiment examining the effects of non-verbal mimicry on negotiation outcomes to better understand the potential role of empathy in diplomatic contexts. She has also assisted with research on decision-making, trust, forgiveness, and punishment. Prior to joining DPI in September 2022, she worked with Afghan evacuees as part of Operation Allies Welcome.

Hayley Bedard, Communications Associate
Joining the organization in September 2022, Hayley Bedard assumed the role of Administrative Assistant and transitioned to Communications Associate in June 2024. Hayley creates and updates website content, helping to maintain DPI’s robust online resources. She coordinates media and press relationships and helps amplify DPI’s impact, fostering meaningful connections with journalists and stakeholders, and building understanding of capital punishment issues with the general public. Additionally, Hayley is responsible for co-managing DPI’s interns, helping to foster a collaborative environment with space for learning and growth. 

Prior to joining DPI, Hayley was an Investigative Intern with the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project. Hayley is a May 2022 graduate of The George Washington University, where she studied Criminal Justice and Chemistry. For their senior seminar work, Hayley focused on wrongful convictions, specifically researching the root causes and repercussions of these injustices, shedding light on the complex police culture that ultimately allows for false confessions to occur. 

Leah Roemer, Staff Attorney

Leah Roemer joined DPI as a Legal Fellow in August 2023 and became a Staff Attorney in September 2024. Leah develops and produces major research and writing projects for DPI. She directed research and served as a primary author for DPI’s Lethal Election report, which exposed the influence of electoral politics on capital cases. Her work has been covered in numerous external outlets. Leah also manages legal interns and creates visualizations on death penalty topics.

Leah graduated from Berkeley Law in 2023 with a certificate in Public Interest and Social Justice. She was a member of Berkeley’s Death Penalty Clinic, where she assisted in the defense of a client on death row in Alabama. She also interned at public defender offices in Albuquerque, Seattle, and the Bay Area, and served as a legal researcher for reproductive rights projects in collaboration with Berkeley’s School of Journalism. She received her undergraduate degrees in Sociology and French from the College of William & Mary in 2019, where she worked with incarcerated youth and wrote her thesis on post-colonial women’s rights in Senegal.

Łukasz Niparko, Data Fellow

Łukasz Niparko ensures the integrity and accuracy of data related to death sentences and contributes to the creation of reports and digital content. He develops statistical analysis and data visualizations using Tableau and R, making complex information more accessible and facilitating data-driven insights into death penalty cases.

He is completing his Political Science and Human Rights doctorate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As a fellow with the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center, Łukasz gained robust experience in data collection, analysis, and visualization. In addition, he honed his research skills with the private sector at Thomson Reuters and Cloud Software Group. Łukasz served with various NGOs, including Humanity in Action, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Polish Humanitarian Action. He is an alumnus of the United World College, St. Lawrence University, and the European University Viadrina. He also was a Pat Cox Fellow at the European Parliament.

Anumta Ali, Administrative Assistant

Anumta Ali graduated from the University of Maryland in 2023 after studying Information Science with emphases on data science and research. After working on voter registration efforts with the Florida Democratic Party in 2020, she developed a passion for making pertinent civic and legislative information more accessible to wider audiences. She has been assisting UMD’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab with various studies for over two years through implementing her Social and Behavioral Research certification from the CITI Program.

These experiences, alongside her coursework, inspired her to pursue research inquiries into systematic inequities through the utilization of multidisciplinary methods such as data analysis and user interviewing. Prior to joining DPI, she has also contributed as an Elections Researcher for a civic education platform and assisted several other organizations with their nuanced community-based needs. She joined DPI in June 2024 as an Administrative Assistant to provide support with the dissemination of information regarding systemic inequities, policy issues, and more.

Board of Directors

The Center’s Board of Directors includes many renowned experts on the subject of capital punishment:

Anthony G. Amsterdam (Board member emeritus), Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law at New York University Law School. Mr. Amsterdam argued Furman v. Georgia before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972, resulting in the overturning of the death penalty and the sparing of more than 600 lives.

David J. Bradford, Partner at Jenner and Block in Chicago. Mr. Bradford serves as Counsel to the MacArthur Justice Center. He has lectured on the death penalty at the University of Chicago Law School, been active in death penalty litigation, and spoken extensively on this subject. Mr. Bradford was recently elected a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He is a former President of DPI’s Board.

David Bruck, Director of the Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse at Washington & Lee School of Law and Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel. One of the country’s leading experts on the death penalty, Mr. Bruck has argued seven death penalty cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other high profile cases, Mr. Bruck represented Susan Smith in her capital trial in South Carolina.

Deborah W. Denno, the Arthur A. McGivney Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law. Ms. Denno is a nationally recognized expert on many aspects of the death penalty and criminal justice. The National Law Journal selected her as one of its “Fifty Most Influential Women Lawyers in America” in 2007.

Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Frank Murphy Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. A former professor at Yale and Stanford, Ms. Ellsworth specializes in law and psychology. She is a research expert on emotions and has written extensively on Americans’ views on the death penalty. She is President of DPI’s Board.

Alexis Hoag-Fordjour, Assistant Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, where she teaches and writes about racism and the criminal legal system. Professor Hoag-Fordjour previously represented capitally convicted clients in federal post-conviction proceedings with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. and the Office of the Federal Public Defender. She serves as a legal contributor to various media outlets and co-chairs the capital punishment committee of the New York City Bar Association.

George Kendall, Director, Public Service Initiative at Squire Patton Boggs in New York. He formerly served as Death Penalty Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Mr. Kendall has defended death penalty defendants nationwide, including in the U.S. Supreme Court, particularly where racism has been a factor in the prosecution. He is a nationally recognized spokesman on the injustices of the death penalty. He is a former President of DPI’s Board.

John R. MacArthur, President and Publisher of Harper’s Magazine. Mr. MacArthur is the inspiration behind the Death Penalty Information Center. He has written on a wide variety of social justice issues.

Mark Olive is one of the nation’s leading experts and trainers in capital punishment law and habeas corpus practice. He is the former director of death penalty resource centers in Florida, Georgia, and Virginia, and is now in private practice. He has litigated capital cases in state and federal courts throughout the country, including in the U.S. Supreme Court, where he most recently argued Wilson v. Sellers.

Sia Sanneh is a Senior Attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, where she represents people on death row and other indigent defendants who have been wrongly convicted, unfairly sentenced, or denied effective representation. Sia also helps develop and manage EJI’s racial justice projects. She has taught courses on capital punishment and public interest law at Yale Law School since 2011.

Cassandra Stubbs, Director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. Ms. Stubbs is a leading advocate against the death penalty. She has represented capital defendants in trial, post-conviction, and appeals across the country. Her clients include Levon Jones, a North Carolina former death row inmate exonerated in 2007, and Marcus Robinson, the first defendant to win a life sentence based on a showing of statewide racial bias in jury selection.

Ronald J. Tabak, Special Counsel and pro bono coordinator at the Law Firm of Skadden, Arps in New York City. Mr. Tabak is a veteran of capital litigation, and has been instrumental in drafting American Bar Association positions on capital punishment. He currently serves as co-chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA’s Section of Civil Rights & Social Justice.