Hiring and Retaining the Justice-Impacted

Esta R. Bigler is Director of Cornell University ILR’s Labor and Employment Law Program, the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative, and the Cornell Project for Records Assistance. Ms. Bigler uses her extensive background in labor and employment law to convene conferences and forums studying current and emerging legal issues impacting employment, with the goal of influencing legislation and public policy decisions.

A major focus of Ms. Bigler’s work is reducing barriers to employment for people with criminal records, exploring the impact of employment on reducing recidivism, employer attitudes toward hiring people with criminal records, and the collateral consequences of incarceration. To expand this work, she founded the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative, which has held national conferences, focus groups, education programs, and direct training, and developed informational websites and brochures.

Jodi Anderson Jr. is the Director of Technological Innovation at Cornell ILR’s Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative, where he is responsible for spearheading the development and deployment of technology solutions that will enable justice-involved individuals to access employment and career development opportunities.

Prior to his current role, Jodi served as a researcher at Stanford’s Accelerator for Learning, where he facilitated connections between early-stage edtech entrepreneurs and resources necessary for accelerating growth and product development aimed at serving under-resourced and marginalized learners.

In collaboration with the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, the Stanford University Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, the Stanford Arts Institute, and the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, Jodi also served as project manager for Stanford’s Imagining Justice youth diversion program throughout the Bay Area.

As an educator, Jodi continues to teach computer programming and digital design courses in Northern California for justice-impacted and incarcerated youth. Jodi is an alumnus of Cornell University’s Prison Education Program and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science as well as a Master of Arts in Education with a focus on Policy and Educational Technology from Stanford University.