Deanna Van Buren is the Executive Director, Design Director, and Co-Founder of ​Designing Justice + Designing Spaces​ (DJDS), an architecture and real estate development non-profit building infrastructure to end mass incarceration. As one of only 500 licensed Black female architects in the United States, Deanna is committed to racial equity in the built environment and is a national thought leader in advocating for alternative spaces for justice, including restorative justice centers and mobile resource villages. Van Buren’s most recent notable projects with her team include: ​Restore Oakland​, a campus for restorative justice and restorative economics in Oakland, California, and the reimagining of the Atlanta City Detention Center into a ​Center for Equity​. Van Buren received her BS in architecture from the University of Virginia, her Masters of Architecture from Columbia University and is the only architect to have been awarded the Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellowship.