JusticeText | About Us

Our Team

We are building a team of empathetic and kind technologists with a commitment to racial and economic justice.

Devshi Mehrotra

CEO

Devshi is a Schwarzman Scholar and Obama Foundation Community Leader recognized for her work at the intersection of tech and impact.
Leslie Jones-Dove

CTO

Leslie is a full-stack engineer with extensive technical experience scaling web products across Google and JP Morgan.
Oscar Hull

Engineer

Oscar is an engineering wizard from Mexico who loves working with fast-paced and mission-driven startup teams.
Caroline Hanson

Intern

Caroline is a fourth year at the University of Chicago studying Public Policy and Computer Science with a passion for criminal justice reform.
Solana Adedokun

Intern

Solana is a Law, Letters, and Society student at the University of Chicago who, as a journalist, wants to know the stories behind people involved in a case and how their stories can help guide us to a fair solution.
Lily Ehsani

Intern

Lily is a third year at the University of Chicago studying computer science and is passionate about improving the quality of help provided to low-income people by public institutions.
Nick Clifford

Intern

Nick is a computer science student at UChicago who is passionate about programming for social impact.
Frederick Zhu

Intern

Frederick is a computer science student at UChicago with a rich background in social science who trusts in the power of technology on social welfare.

Why We Are Building JusticeText

Our founding team began attending college in Chicago in 2015. During the November of our freshman year, a dash cam video was released revealing that a 17-year-old, unarmed African American boy by the name of Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer. In the aftermath of this tragedy, the city saw a proliferation of facial recognition software, gang databases, and predictive policing tools - all applications of technology designed to expedite arrest and incarceration.

In our increasingly technology-dependent criminal justice system, there was an utter lack of technological solutions built with empathy for the communities most directly affected by it. And that is exactly why we started building JusticeText.

As technologists of color, our work is grounded in both a sociological and historical appreciation for the complexities of the American criminal justice system—with its gaping faults and inequality but also its capacity for reform. In building this organization, we are committed to strengthening the capacity of our public institutions to ensure criminal legal representation for all Americans, regardless of income.