Zixiaojie (Jill) Yang, PhD, MSW, is a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Social Justice Institute. Jill’s research focuses on justice system-involved youth and their families, juvenile justice reform policies and practices, police training in procedural justice, and community building and engagement. She has practice experience in working on resentencing cases and reentry processes with individuals sentenced to juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences. Jill has been actively involved in community service and working with marginalized urban groups on community organizing and juvenile justice reform advocacy. As an instructor, she has taught in the areas of social justice and social work, including Human Behavior in the Social Environment and Critical Social Work in Multicultural Society. She is the current instructor for SJUS 100: Introduction to Social Justice for ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ undergraduate students.
Jill received her Master's degree in Social Work from the University of Chicago in 2017 and completed her PhD at Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois Chicago in 2022. Her dissertation research was funded by the Fahs-Beck Doctoral Dissertation Grant. She used a case study design to unpack the unique experience of families of individuals with JLWOP through a community-based mutual aid group in Chicago.