current credentials

Georgetown University Law Center, Juris Doctor, 2021

Harvard Graduate School of Education, Masters in Education, Prevention Science and Practice, 2011

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, B.S. Public Policy; B.S. Sociology; B.A. International Studies, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Magna cum Laude, Alpha Society, 2009 Harry S. Truman Scholar, Brock University Honors Program Scholar (full merit-based scholarship), 2010

highlighted work

Chief of Staff, DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS)                                                                            

HIGHLIGHTED research & Publications

2019 Gender and Justice Research Grant, Georgetown Gender and Justice Initiative 

HIGLIGHTED service

2020-Present District of Columbia Police Reform Commission, Commissioner (Personal capacity) by District of Columbia Council appointment

Read the Commission's Final Report here.

HIGHLIGHTED professional DEVELOPMENT

2021-2023 National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI), Policy Fellow

HIGHLIGHTED RECOGNITION

2019 Ryan Child Advocacy Fellowship 

2019 Jones Day Pro Bono Award

2019 Women's Committee of the J. Franklyn Bourne Bar Association Scholarship

2018 National Juvenile Justice Network Beth Arnovits Gutsy Advocate for Youth Award

 LaShunda S. Hill aligns policy, practice, advocacy and resources to positively impact the lives of children navigating risk.

She stubbornly believes that systems can and should be restorative and healing instead of retributive and harmful to children and communities.

Ms. Hill combines her expertise and experience in juvenile and criminal justice, workforce development, education, and child welfare to build a more just and loving world where every child in every community thrives.  

Currently, Ms. Hill serves as Chief of Staff for the DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS), the District’s juvenile justice agency. DYRS is responsible for the care of District youth who are placed in secure and non-secure settings. In this role, she serves as senior executive advisor to the director while also leading the agency’s legislative, external affairs and performance functions. She also leads 5 agency departments overseeing 35 senior leaders and direct service staff. Prior to DYRS, Ms. Hill served as the first Executive Director of the Office for Students in the Care of the District of Columbia (SCDC) within the District of Columbia’s Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME). Under her leadership, SCDC strengthened the educational and workforce development services and supports for students who touched the child welfare and justice systems in the District of Columbia.

Informing her macro level policy work, Ms. Hill also has knowledge of how to effectively design and administer programmatic interventions targeting children and families navigating risk. As a Family Intervention Specialist with Youth Villages, she provided in-home intervention services for system-involved youth transitioning out of residential placements. She also co-founded and served as Assistant Director of the Many Faces of Diversity Program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (MFDUTC), which provided college preparatory programming for youth navigating risk within the Hamilton County, Tennessee school system.

In service to her community, served as co-chair of the National Juvenile Justice Network's (NJJN) Membership Advisory Council and NJJN's Racial Justice Steering Committee. She has volunteered her time with Essie Justice Group as a program team member, Brown Girls Lead as a mentor and coach. In 2018, Ms. Hill was appointed by the Mayor of the District of Columbia to serve as a member of the District of Columbia’s Child Fatality Review Committee, a multidisciplinary team of District residents, community-based providers, child advocates, physicians and government leaders who identify systemic strategies for reducing preventable child deaths. Ms. Hill was appointed in 2020 to serve in her personal capacity as a Commissioner on the District of Columbia’s Police Reform Commission. In this role, she worked with a diverse array of stakeholders both within government and in the community to develop actionable strategies for increasing public safety and investments in communities. The Commission released its final report with recommendations for systemic reform in 2021.

Ms. Hill graduated with highest honors from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) where she completed two departmental honors theses entitled, The Myth of the Juvenile Superpredator: Juvenile Waiver and its Impact on Juvenile Offenders, and The Empowerment of Africa’s Womb: Women’s Role in Ghanaian Development. As a Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow at Princeton University, she completed a group consulting project for New Jersey’s Attorney General’s Office entitled, Waiving Hope: An Analysis of the Juvenile Waiver Process in New Jersey. In 2009, she was chosen as a Harry S. Truman Scholar.

She also holds a Ed.M. in Adolescent Prevention Science and Practice from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). While at HGSE, Ms. Hill provided GED and job preparatory programming to young women enrolled in the Quincy Teen Mothers Program and designed a peer mediation program for a small alternative middle school that included the development of curriculum for the training of student mediators, teachers, staff, and the education of the entire student body. She also completed a group consulting project for the Massachusetts Department of Education outlining state strategies to provide district level incentives for developing dropout recovery services entitled, All Means All: A Policy Proposal for Improving Dropout Recovery in Massachusetts. The project included six policy recommendations designed to lower the dropout rate and facilitate student re-engagement. 

While completing her J.D. at Georgetown University Law Center, she served as a Research Assistant for the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative, was awarded the Ryan Child Advocacy Fellowship, the Jones Day Pro Bono Award and The Women's Committee of the J. Franklyn Bourne Bar Association Scholarship. During law school, Ms. Hill also served as a summer law clerk with the Juvenile Division of the Office of the Maryland Public Defender in Baltimore and as a legal intern in the Family Court Division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. She also completed the Criminal Defense Trial Practice Institute with the District of Columbia Public Defender Service. In addition to her law school activities, she was awarded the Gender and Justice Grant from Georgetown’s Gender and Justice Initiative, funding research focused on Black Southern American women. 

In recognition of her leadership and dedication to Black children and families, Ms. Hill was selected as a National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI) 2021-2023 Policy Fellow. In recognition of her work in juvenile justice, Ms. Hill was awarded the 2018 Beth Arnovits Gutsy Advocate for Youth Award, which is given annually by the National Juvenile Justice Network to an individual who advocates for youth and racial justice and exemplifies “tenacity, vision, fearlessness and wisdom.”

Academic Credentials:  

BA in International Studies, BS in Public Policy and a BS in Sociology from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

EdM from Harvard University Graduate School of Education

JD from Georgetown University Law Center