Dr. Grace Gámez

Dr. Grace Gámez currently serves as the Assistant Director of Advocacy at Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research. She is the founder and former director of Reframing Justice, an advocacy program in Arizona for people impacted by mass criminalization and incarceration. Through leadership workshops, multimedia storytelling, coalition building, and community participatory research- Dr. Gámez worked to position directly impacted people to lead anti-criminalization movement work in Arizona. ReFraming Justice focused on shifting the public imagination away from models rooted in punishment towards ones that embrace radical community-making and healing. Dr. Gámez’s recently released research, The Barrio Centro Community Safety Participatory Research Project, led the City of Tucson to adopt a city-wide research project to collect data on what residents define as safety and what investments would improve community wellbeing.

Grace is a mother, partner, embodied leader, mobilizer, researcher, storyteller and freedom dreamer. She values wholeheartedness, complexity, accountability over punishment and brave visioning.

She is a 2021 Windcall Resident, member of RTI’s APPR Advisory Board, and 2018 Lead with Conviction fellow with JustLeadershipUSA. Grace holds a Ph.D. in Justice Studies from Arizona State University, and a Master of Science degree in Mexican American Studies & Public Health from the University of Arizona.