Denise is the co-executive director of If/When/How. She is an attorney and expert in criminal justice reform, specializing in issues related to marginalized and underserved populations. These include individuals with lived experiences of mental health issues, racial minorities, people who use controlled substances, individuals involved in the criminal justice system, and LGBTQ+ individuals at the intersection of these identities.
Tomasini-Joshi served as Chief of Staff at the Innocence Project. She was also Director of the Public Health Program within the Law and Health Equity Division at the Open Society Foundation (OSF), overseeing a $12 million budget and grantmaking in 16 countries. Previously, she held roles as Acting Co-Director of the OSF Women’s Rights Program, Deputy Director of OSF’s International Harm Reduction Development Program, and Legal Officer for the Open Society Justice Initiative’s National Criminal Justice Reform Program, where she helped establish the first pretrial release program in Mexico.
Tomasini-Joshi also excelled as Vice Dean for Public Service and Executive Director of the Root-Tilden-Kern Program at New York University (NYU) School of Law; as a Policy Analyst at the Council of State Governments’ Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project; and as an attorney at Columbia University’s Goddard-Riverside Tenant Assistance Project and MFY Legal Services. She holds a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School, a Master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a Bachelor’s degree from Purdue University.
