Sarah Brayne, PhD
(Director and Co-Founder)
Dr. Sarah Brayne is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Scholar at the Population Research Center at UT Austin. After volunteer teaching in state prisons since 2012, she co-founded TPEI in 2017. Sarah is committed to reducing educational inequalities on campus and in prisons, and improving on one of the key issues underpinning mass incarceration in the first place–structural barriers to educational access. Sarah received her PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from Princeton University.
Contact: sbrayne@utexas.edu
Max Lubell
(Program Co-Coordinator)
Max is the co-coordinator of TPEI and a PhD student in the Department of Sociology. Max works with faculty members and graduate students across UT Austin departmental units to identify, design, and implement TPEI’s course offerings. He works hands-on with incarcerated students, volunteers, and program site staff to adapt university course syllabi and materials to the prison context. His academic research interests focus on crime, communities, and education. Max holds a BA in Sociology from the University of Michigan.
Contact: mlubell@utexas.edu
Chloe Craig
(Program Co-Coordinator)
Chloe is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the UT Austin. Before entering her new role as co-coordinator, she served as a lead lecturer for TPEI, teaching sociology courses at Coleman Women’s Facility. She hopes to use her skills in research and academia to write policies and shed light on the experiences of women and mothers tethered to the criminal legal system.
Contact: cjcraig@utexas.edu
Armando Lizarraga
(Director of Pedagogy and Practice)
Armando is from Inglewood, California and is a PhD student in Educational Leadership and Policy at UT Austin. As someone directly impacted by the justice system, he lives through the ripple effects of incarceration. Armando researches higher education access, carceral systems, and community colleges. He earned an AA in general studies from El Camino College, a BA in Chicana/o studies and sociology from UCLA, and his MA in higher and postsecondary education from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Contact: alizarraga@utexas.edu
Lindsay Bing, PhD
(Co-Founder)
Dr. Bing is a postdoctoral research scholar at the Justice Lab at Columbia University. Prior to joining the Justice Lab, Lindsay earned a PhD in Sociology with a specialty in Demography from the University of Texas at Austin, where they co-founded TPEI with Sarah Brayne. Prior to starting a PhD, Lindsay was involved in collegiate debating in New York prisons through the Cornell Prison Education Program and the Bard Prison Initiative.
Contact: lb3460@columbia.edu
