Kaia Stern is co-founder and director of the Prison Studies Project, the first practitioner in residence at the Radcliffe Institute, executive director of Concord Prison Outreach, and co-leads the Transformative Justice Initiative at HGSE. From Sing Sing prison to The White House, Stern’s work has been grounded in reimagining justice. She has taught extensively on topics such as liberation theology, ethics, punishment, race, eye contact and transformative justice. Author of Voices from American Prisons: Faith, Education, and Healing (Routledge, 2014), she is currently working on a book about memory and justice. 

Recognized as a national resource, her contribution to the Greenhaven Prison Program at Vassar College, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, Vera Institute of Justice, Kings County District Attorney's Office, Interfaith Justice Project at The Riverside Church, Open Society Institute's After Prison Initiative, Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, Boston University's Prison Education Program, Department of Justice's Norval Morris Project, and Truth Commission on Conscience in War has facilitated work with numerous schools and prisons in various states.

Stern holds a doctorate in religion from Emory University and an M.A. of theological studies from the Harvard Divinity School. She is ordained as an interfaith minister and has been learning/teaching in and about U.S. prisons for 25 years.