Elizabeth Vartkessian

Mitigation specialist Elizabeth Vartkessian has been investigating the life histories of those facing the most severe penalties possible in the United States since 2004. She holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Oxford, an M.S. in Comparative Social Policy from Oxford, and B.A.s in Philosophy and Political Science from the George Washington University, where she was a Presidential Scholar. In 2015 she was awarded the J.M.K. Innovation Prize for her efforts to bring mitigation to all areas of the criminal justice process. In 2018, the City Council of Baltimore passed a resolution praising her efforts to bring human dignity into the justice system. After launching a successful private practice, Vartkessian and several colleagues created Advancing Real Change, Inc., a national non-profit dedicated to conducting life history investigations in criminal cases. She has spoken widely and written on the criminal legal system in the Baltimore Sun and numerous peer-reviewed journals and law reviews. She lives in Baltimore.