Team

Asmara Carbado is the Senior Lead for Program and Facilitation at Perception Strategies and a Civil Rights Investigative Attorney at UCLA. She specializes in antidiscrimination law, workplace compliance, and training and education on workplace culture.

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Asmara develops tailored training, facilitation, coaching, advising, and connection circles based on the specific needs of each client. She leverages her expertise concerning microaggressions, intersectionality, dialogue, mediation, trauma-informed engagement, and workplace investigations to help institutions both diagnose workplace paint points and vulnerabilities and fashion sensible and effective interventions. 

Graduating summa cum laude, Asmara obtained her Undergraduate and Master’s degree from UCLA where she focused on issues of race, gender, class, and the extent to which intersectionality is not addressed in the United States legal system. She moved on to obtain her JD from Harvard Law School where she worked with the ACLU, the Equal Justice Initiative, and the Federal Public Defender’s Office. Asmara also served as the Executive Editor for Harvard Law’s Journal for Racial and Ethnic Justice. 

In addition to obtaining her BA, MA, and JD, Asmara has undergone extensive training in LGBTQIA+ allyship, disability law, labor relations, and has obtained certifications in Workplace Investigations, Title IX Investigations, Facilitating Dialogue, and Mediation. 

Jason Craige Harris is Managing Partner at Perception Strategies. Jason is a strategist, mediator, and coach who helps leaders and organizations develop and sustain cultures rooted in dignity and driven by impact. Drawing on insights from multiple fields, he supports groups in developing trust, achieving ambitious goals, and building structures that work.

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An expert in ethical leadership, restorative practices, conflict resolution, and dialogue across difference, Jason also serves as a writer, speaker, and spiritual advisor. He uses the transformative power of storytelling to cultivate humility, curiosity, and compassion across sectors, contexts, and age groups. Specializing in preventing, analyzing, and repairing breakdowns in relationships and systems, Jason offers practical tools for navigating complexity and creating environments where everyone can thrive.

Jennifer is a documentary filmmaker whose work includes the feature film Love & Diane which premiered at the New York Film Festival and went on to Sundance and other international festivals. It was awarded an Independent Spirit Award and other awards and went on to a theatrical release and broadcast on PBS and BBC. The film is now used in law schools, social work programs and by child welfare agencies in many parts of the country.

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Her films also include Homeless in the Shadows of Santa Barbara’s Mansions, produced by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project was shown on The Nation and  Bill Moyer’s and by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in televised town hall meeting on inequality. As well as her independent work Jennifer directed community outreach films for Obama campaign 2012. More recently she has worked with Perception Institute on several video projects among them training films for New York State Courts and the National Association of Realtors. 

Jennifer founded and ran a program for children living in shelters in New York as well as teaching filmmaking for court-involved youth and youth in foster-care.  She was a Visiting lecturer in the humanities, Bard College and has edited several books most recently Break ‘Em Up by Zephyr Teachout.

Jennifer attended Harvard College and holds a MA in Philosophy and Cognitive Studies from Cornell University where she was a PhD candidate before leaving to make her first film. 

Rheanna Ganapathy is the Senior Research Analyst at Perception Strategies. Rheanna works within Perception's Lab team on client engagements and assessments of workplace climate and interpersonal dynamics, analyzing data on perceptions of workplace experience and applying social science insights to assessment findings. She also works on Perception Institute's original research studies. Prior to Perception, Rheanna had four years of academic research experience in psychology and economics, and four years of client experience in the corporate sector.

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Rheanna’s research has addressed questions pertaining to the impact of racial perception and media representation on health, understanding immigrant identity and political attitudes, analyzing predictors of prosocial behavior, and exploring geographic markers of poverty and gentrification. She utilizes both qualitative and quantitative methods to pursue this work. Prior to Perception, Rheanna worked in the corporate risk management and insurance industry for four years as a VP and marine cargo broker and advisor, supporting over 100 Fortune 500 companies managing their exposure to risk throughout their supply chain. Rheanna received a MA in Psychology from New York University, and a BS in Psychology and BS in Economics from Santa Clara University. She is currently based in the SF Bay Area.

Rachel Godsil is Principal of Perception Strategies LLC, Co-Founder and Senior Research Advisor at Perception Institute, and a Distinguished Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Scholar at Rutgers Law School. She collaborates with social scientists on empirical research focused on narrative shift and systemic interventions to promote dignity and belonging. She regularly leads workshops and presentations to translate empirical insights into systems change.

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Rachel has also co-authored numerous book chapters and articles such as: Overcoming Identity-Based Hierarchies: Understanding Psychological Barriers and Motivating Social Justice Through Intergroup Contact (Research Handbook on Law and Psychology, 2024);  Promoting Fairness? Examining the Efficacy of Implicit Bias Training in the Criminal Justice System (Bias in the Law, 2020),  She  is a lead author of Perception Institute reports, including The Science of Equality in Education: The Impact of Implicit Bias, Racial Anxiety, and Stereotype Threat on Student Outcomes (2018), The “Good Hair” Study: Explicit and Implicit Attitudes Toward Black Women’s Hair (2017), and The Science of Equality, Volume 2: The Effects of Gender Roles, Implicit Bias, and Stereotype Threat on the Lives of Women and Girls (2016). With Perception, she has collaborated with other organizations to produce influential reports, such as Challenging the Disparities Default:  Reframing and Reclaiming Women's Power (2020); a research review with Story At Scale entitled What Are We Up Against? An Intersectional Examination of Stereotypes Associated with Gender? (2020), and a volume of the PopJustice initiative, Pop Culture, Perceptions, and Social Change: A Research Review (2016).

Rachel is a member of the Solidarity Council for Racial Equity with the W.K.Kellogg Foundation and a Board Member of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. 

Previously, Rachel was Eleanor Bontecou Professor of Law at Seton Hall University Law School, a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and taught property at New York University Law School.  Rachel holds a J.D. from Michigan Law School (magna cum laude and Order of the Coif).  After law school, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York,  an Associate Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, focusing on environmental justice, as well as an associate with Berle, Kass & Case and Arnold & Porter in New York City.

Fahima Islam is the Director, Perception Lab at Perception Strategies. Fahima works closely with client stakeholders to implement internal needs assessments with a focus on equity and belonging. In her role on the Assessment team, Fahima utilizes mixed methods (climate surveys, focus groups, and/or interviews) to surface key insights and develop context-specific recommendations for organizations.

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Fahima synthesizes and translates academic research to inform Perception’s Mind Science Workshops and to generate public-facing research reports. She also contributes to the evaluation of story and representation with content creators, with attention to stereotype tropes.

Fahima is committed to social justice and inter-cultural understanding. She has a background in international development and has worked on social and environmental impact initiatives to support local populations in South Asia. Her work has helped stakeholders mobilize people and capital to sustainably rebuild communities and invest in education. She has also endeavored to bring attention to climate change’s disproportionate impact on women and children in order to drive equity. As a Project Implementation Officer with BRAC in Bangladesh, Fahima cultivated relationships with international partners to develop disaster resilience in vulnerable areas and to promote child safety within Rohingya refugee communities. Her work has spanned across racial, socioeconomic, gender, health, environmental and religious equity concerns. 

Fahima earned her MPA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and her BA from New York University’s College of Arts & Science. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Sidra Shabbir is the Research Analyst & Project Manager at Perception Strategies. 

Sidra had gotten her start in racial justice work while earning her Bachelors of Arts (B.A.) in Political Science and graduating from Long Island University (LIU) as Valedictorian of the Class of 2020. The focus of her degree was on Political Theory and Intersectionality.

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While at university, Sidra had gained experience working at multiple law firms to support attorneys in cases representing individuals from lower-income backgrounds. She had gained perspective and learned tools for change while representing LIU at conferences where she had gotten to meet world leaders and pioneers in the global marketplace, including participating at West Point Military Academy’s McDonald Conference for Leaders of Character. 

After graduating, she had immediately joined the nonprofit sector, working with start-up companies to branch out and build mission driven organizations from the ground up. Her work has helped expand gun violence prevention initiatives across the New York City area, and create community-public safety methods practiced by the Crisis Management System to this day. While working with community safety groups, the Mayor’s Office of NYC and other political stakeholders, Sidra helped to not only lead Operations for organizations, but had taken on the responsibility of expanding services and budgets for projects that impact resource allocation for communities of more color.

Today, Sidra works closely with Perception leadership to drive special projects and maintain client relationships company wide. She applies her background in legal advocacy, racial justice work, and activism to continue to champion Perception’s mission of creating real solutions to reduce harm in a wide array of sectors and spaces.

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Rebecca Willett is the Chief of Staff and Strategic Initiatives at Perception Strategies. With 20 years of experience leading tech and operations for social justice organizations, Rebecca has a passion for organizational capacity and team-building. Her focus at Perception is to structure the organization’s work with clients and manage internal resources to ensure effective and timely project completion.

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Prior to joining Perception, Rebecca worked at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for ten years, where she helped to build and lead a nationwide digital tech program that currently reaches 120 million young people in the U.S. each year.

Rebecca holds a B.A. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. She currently lives in Oakland.

Devon Carbado is the Honorable Harry Pregerson Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and the former Associate Vice Chancellor of BruinX for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. He teaches Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Law, Critical Race Theory, and Criminal Adjudication. He has won numerous teaching awards, including being elected Professor of the Year by the UCLA School of Law classes of 2000 and 2006 and received the Law School’s Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2003 and the University’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the Eby Award for the Art of Teaching in 2007.

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In 2005 Professor Carbado was an inaugural recipient of the Fletcher Foundation Fellowship. Modeled on the Guggenheim fellowships, it is awarded to scholars whose work furthers the goals of Brown v. Board of Education. In 2018, he was named an inaugural recipient of the Atlantic Philanthropies Fellowship for Racial Equity.

Professor Carbado writes in the areas of employment discrimination, criminal procedure, implicit bias, constitutional law, and critical race theory. His scholarship appears in law reviews at UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard, Michigan, Cornell, and Yale, among other venues. He is the author of Acting White? Rethinking Race in “Post-Racial” America (Oxford University Press) (with Mitu Gulati) and the editor of several volumes, including RaceLaw Stories (Foundation Press) (with Rachel Moran), The Long Walk to Freedom: Runaway Slave Narratives (Beacon Press) (with Donald Weise), and Time on Two Crosses: The Collective Writings of Bayard Rustin (Cleis Press) (with Donald Weise).  A board member of the African American Policy Forum, Professor Carbado was the Shikes Fellow in Civil Liberties and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in 2012.

Professor Carbado graduated from Harvard Law School in 1994. At Harvard, he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Black Letter Law Journal, a member of the Board of Student Advisors, and winner of the Northeast Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition. Carbado joined the UCLA School of Law faculty in 1997.  He served as Vice Dean for Faculty and Research at the School of Law from 2006-07, and again in 2009-10. Professor Carbado is currently working on a series of articles on affirmative action and a book on race, law, and police violence.

In 2005 Professor Carbado was an inaugural recipient of the Fletcher Foundation Fellowship. Modeled on the Guggenheim fellowships, it is awarded to scholars whose work furthers the goals of Brown v. Board of Education. In 2018, he was named an inaugural recipient of the Atlantic Philanthropies Fellowship for Racial Equity.

Professor Carbado writes in the areas of employment discrimination, criminal procedure, implicit bias, constitutional law, and critical race theory. His scholarship appears in law reviews at UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard, Michigan, Cornell, and Yale, among other venues. He is the author of Acting White? Rethinking Race in “Post-Racial” America (Oxford University Press) (with Mitu Gulati) and the editor of several volumes, including RaceLaw Stories (Foundation Press) (with Rachel Moran), The Long Walk to Freedom: Runaway Slave Narratives (Beacon Press) (with Donald Weise), and Time on Two Crosses: The Collective Writings of Bayard Rustin (Cleis Press) (with Donald Weise).  A board member of the African American Policy Forum, Professor Carbado was the Shikes Fellow in Civil Liberties and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in 2012.

Professor Carbado graduated from Harvard Law School in 1994. At Harvard, he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Black Letter Law Journal, a member of the Board of Student Advisors, and winner of the Northeast Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition. Carbado joined the UCLA School of Law faculty in 1997.  He served as Vice Dean for Faculty and Research at the School of Law from 2006-07, and again in 2009-10. Professor Carbado is currently working on a series of articles on affirmative action and a book on race, law, and police violence.

Michelle DePass began her career as a community organizer in New York and went onto leadership positions in philanthropy, government, academia and the nonprofit sector. Over three decades, she has distinguished herself as a thought leader at the intersections of social and economic justice, community organizing and political strategy, and progressive philanthropy and academia. She is known as a leader who brings people together, encourages problem solving and makes a meaningful difference for underserved communities and beyond. She is particularly passionate about social, economic and environmental justice for people of color, women, indigenous peoples and low-income communities.

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Each step along DePass’ professional journey has lent fresh insights into entrenched injustices across a broad spectrum of sectors — and honed her conviction to overcome them. As a civil rights lawyer, she litigated racial discrimination and human rights violations at the Center for Constitutional Rights. As a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee in the Obama administration, she oversaw a $120 million budget at the Environmental Protection Agency, where she led the creation of the Office of International and Tribal Affairs, elevating the agency’s recognition of the sovereign rights of indigenous peoples in the United States. And as a program officer at the Ford Foundation, she created funding initiatives focused on the intersection of environmental justice and community and economic development. This work included the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health, which supported community-led rebuilding efforts after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and ReGenerations, a national youth organizing program that linked environmental justice with reproductive rights, culture and policy advocacy.

DePass recognizes the need to invest in the next generation and educate them on the importance of racial, social, economic and environmental justice. Early in her career, she taught environmental law and policy at the City University of New York and was responsible for creating the city’s first environmental jobs skills training program for underserved young men and women. She was also the founding executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, a membership network linking grassroots organizations from low-income neighborhoods and communities of color in their struggle for environmental justice. In 2013, DePass became dean of the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy and Tishman Professor of Environmental Policy and Management at The New School, an incubator for the next generation of leaders. There, she has shepherded the graduate school toward a social justice focus, developing leadership and supporting project-based research to solve some of society’s most pressing problems around race, climate and sustainability, even as she has elevated the school’s policy and management offerings. DePass also serves as director of The New School’s Tishman Environment and Design Center, a university-wide center committed to bringing an interdisciplinary and environmental justice approach to contemporary environmental challenges. Through the Tishman Center, DePass worked to position The New School as an academic ally in the environmental justice movement by bringing visiting scholars to the university to co-produce research on environmental justice issues, including the implications of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, and Native and Indigenous resistance movements working on climate change. She has also actively served in dozens of philanthropic and nonprofit organizations throughout her career, and currently sits on the governing or advisory boards of The Nature Conservancy, Grist.org, the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund, and the Perception Institute.

 DePass holds a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University, a Juris Doctor from Fordham Law School, an honorary doctorate from Fordham University and a Master of Public Administration from Baruch College, where she was a National Urban Fellow.

MICHELLE J. DEPASS

she / her / hers

Twitter @michelledepass

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Jerry Kang is Distinguished Professor of Law, Distinguished Professor of Asian American Studies, and was the inaugural Korea Times – Hankook Ilbo Endowed Chair in Korean American Studies and Law (2010-20). He recently stepped down as UCLA’s Founding Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (2015-20)  after completing a five year mission to “build equity for all.”

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Professor Kang’s teaching and research interests include civil procedure, race, and communications. On race, he has focused on the nexus between implicit bias and the law, with the goal of advancing a “behavioral realism” in legal analysis. He regularly collaborates with leading experimental social psychologists on wide-ranging scholarly, educational, and advocacy projects. He also lectures broadly to lawyers, judges, government agencies, and corporations about implicit bias and how to counter them.

An expert on Asian American communities, he has written about hate crimes, affirmative action, the Japanese American internment, and its lessons for the “War on Terror.” He is a co-author of Race, Rights, and Reparation: The Law and the Japanese American Internment (2d ed. Wolters Kluwer 2013).

On communications, Professor Kang has published on the topics of privacy, net neutrality, pervasive computing, mass media policy, and cyber-race (the construction of race in cyberspace). He is also the author of Communications Law & Policy: Cases and Materials (7th edition 2020), a leading casebook in the field.

During law school, Professor Kang was a Supervising Editor of the Harvard Law Review and Special Assistant to Harvard University’s Advisory Committee on Free Speech. After graduation, he clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, then worked at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on cyberspace policy.

He joined UCLA in Fall 1995 and has been recognized for his teaching by being elected Professor of the Year in 1998; receiving the law school’s Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2007; and being chosen for the highest university-wide distinction, the University Distinguished Teaching Award (The Eby Award for the Art of Teaching) in 2010.  At UCLA School of Law, he was founding co-Director of the Concentration for Critical Race Studies as well as PULSE: Program on Understanding Law, Science, and Evidence.  Prof. Kang has taught at Harvard and Georgetown law schools, and was the David M. Friedman Fellow at NYU’s Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law & Justice.

Prof. Kang is a member of the American Law Institute, has chaired the American Association of Law School’s Section on Defamation and Privacy, has served on the Board of Directors of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He has received numerous awards, including Vice President Al Gore’s “Hammer Award” for Reinventing Government and the American Association of Law School’s Clyde Ferguson Award.