Program Director for Juvenile Justice, Public Welfare Foundation
Since 2010, Katayoon Majd has been the Public Welfare Foundation’s program director for Juvenile Justice, running a grant-making portfolio focused on ending the criminalization and over-incarceration of youth nationwide. Her career has centered on advocating for the rights of youth — in the juvenile justice, child welfare, and education systems. Prior to joining the Foundation, Majd worked as a senior staff attorney at the National Juvenile Defender Center, where she helped coordinate a national initiative to ensure fairness for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in delinquency courts. She has also worked as a staff attorney at the Children’s Law Center in Washington, DC, representing youth as a guardian ad litem in child welfare cases. And, as a staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, her work focused on racial equity issues in California’s public education system. In 2012, Majd was appointed to the advisory committee of the National Girls Institute, a project of the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. She has also taught courses as an adjunct faculty member at Howard University School of Law and Washington College of Law at American University. In 2000, she was awarded a two-year New Voices Fellowship, a leadership development program for the nonprofit sector. Majd received her J.D. from Stanford Law School and her B.A. from Stanford University.