Jyoti Nanda

Jyoti Nanda is a Professor at Southwestern Law School, joining in Summer 2024. She holds a B.A. (High Honors) in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley (1995) and a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law (2001). A national expert on youth justice, her research focuses on criminal/juvenile law's role in the carceral state, with an emphasis on race, gender, disability, and immigration. She has authored groundbreaking works, including Blind Discretion: Girls of Color in the Delinquency System (2012) and a 2022 paper critiquing juvenile probation systems. Nanda has been recognized with the Justice Jesse W. Carter Faculty Scholarship Award (2022) and named a Salzburg Global Fellow (2023).

Her advocacy includes co-founding the Youth Justice Navigator (YJN) app and leading the ABA Youth Justice National Standards project. She previously directed UCLA’s Youth & Justice Clinic and taught at UC Davis, USC, and Paris Nanterré University. Nanda’s work bridges scholarship and practice, aiming to dismantle systemic inequities in legal systems.

• Education: B.A., UC Berkeley; J.D., Northwestern University
• Key Roles: ABA Reporter for Youth Justice Standards, Principal Investigator with Vera Institute’s Girls/Gender Non-Conforming Youth Research Project
• Advocacy: Co-founder of YJN, former Skadden Fellow at NAACP LDF, and legal educator globally.