Jenna D’Ottavio

Jenna is a Government Affairs Analyst. For the last decade she has focused her efforts on improving outcomes for children and families. Jenna weaves together her work as a researcher and educator and through phenomenological and structural violence methods to express longitudinal trends, and uses data to make numbers talk.

She believes that by improving the function of foster care, they will be able to dismantle one of the branches that feeds into the school-to-prison pipeline.

Jenna has a B.A. in History, B.A. in English, and a Minor in Education from the University of South Dakota and an M.A. in AAAS from the University of Kansas with concentrations in Critical Prison Studies and Arabic and Islamic Studies. She has also earned a Graduate Certificate in Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies from KU.