Joelle kirtleY

Joelle has taken a winding road to arrive in exactly the place she feels she can offer the most to her community of all of the lessons she has learned along the journey. Starting with a literature degree and then teaching English as a Second Language across continents, she moved on to a Master’s and PhD in Linguistics at the University of Hawai’i, learning to craft research methodologies around varying hypotheses and use empirical methods to understand and tear down hegemony. Upon moving to the Los Angeles area, she began to work in various causes in the nonprofit sector; animal rescue, homeless services, employment, and senior welfare. This is when she first worked in Reentry, and she found a love for the work to be done and for the community of Returning Citizens. She founded Mass Liberation in 2019 with her colleague Jay Gutierrez, and she has been building programs and opportunities there for the past seven years as the organization’s CEO.