Our Team

Prior to joining Just City, Josh served as Director of the Defender’s Resource Network at the Shelby County Public Defender’s Office. He was a part of that office’s Special Litigation Team, which administers the Jericho Project, a nationally-recognized jail diversion program for people with serious and persistent mental illness and substance use issues. He spent several years in private criminal and insurance defense practices as well.

As an attorney in the criminal legal system, Josh saw that many people never get a fair shot at justice and was inspired, along with many others, to organize Just City. Today, he works alongside its staff, board, and many supporters to create a smaller, fairer, and more humane criminal justice system. Josh has degrees from Rhodes College and the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis.

Katie is a Memphis native with more than a decade of experience in nonprofit operations and fundraising. She began her career in Washington, D.C., working in a large fundraising office before returning to Memphis, where she gained valuable public policy and program experience at Community Alliance for the Homeless. Through this work, she connected with Just City and joined the organization in its early days, helping to shape its growth and impact.

Now serving as Just City’s Director of Development, Katie leads fundraising strategy, donor engagement, and long-term sustainability efforts. She works closely with supporters, foundations, and community partners in pursuit of Just City's vision—a smaller, fairer, and more humane criminal justice system.
Katie holds a B.A. in Political Science and a Certificate in Fundraising Management from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. She also serves on the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Memphis Board of Directors.

Yonée is a Bluff City transplant and loves her adoptive home as if she were Memphis-born and raised. Before joining Just City, Yonée worked in multiple Memphis-area nonprofits focused on addressing socioeconomic inequality and racial injustice impacting local families. Through counseling her students and families, she witnessed disparities in the Shelby County justice system. Now Yonée focuses her advocacy and volunteerism skills on bringing transparency and insight to courtroom proceedings, managing our Court Watch program and serving as Student Coordinator.

Yonée earned a Bachelors of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies (Linguistics and Educational Psychology ) from Mississippi State University and a certificate in Community Transformation from Memphis Center for Urban Theological Studies.

Originally from South Carolina, Ashley is proud to call Memphis her chosen home. She first came to Memphis for college and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Business. Upon graduation, she served with the AmeriCorps National Service program to address accessibility barriers in vision care and taxation for working families. Before joining Just City, Ashley served as the Program Manager for Impact America in Tennessee and co-chair of the organization’s inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Workgroup. She is passionate about advancing racial equity by ensuring access to financial stability and a better quality of life to all Memphians. Ashley oversees Just City's Clean Slate Program.

In 2014, after finishing his M.A. in mathematics at UC Santa Cruz, Ryan returned to Memphis to start the first education program at the 2,813-bed Shelby County Jail in over a decade. Dismayed by the barrage of young students sentenced to life in prison for crimes they committed as children, he transitioned into criminal justice policy reform at Just City where he began his journey into the technology and data space.
Ryan took a temporary hiatus from working at Just City to serve as Executive Director of a local foundation and Data Scientist at the World Bank’s DE JURE (Data and Evidence for Justice Reform) project, and returned to Just City in 2022 to do the work that he loves most.