A native Houstonian, Dr. Anita Wadhwa is the Executive Director of Restorative Houston, whose mission is to train a multigenerational network of peacekeepers who build community and repair harm in all Houston neighborhoods. After receiving her doctorate from Harvard, she published Restorative Justice in Urban Schools. Under her leadership, Restorative Houston operates the only community‑built restorative practices certification program in Texas, grounding restorative justice in the lived wisdom, cultural strengths, and leadership of Houston’s own communities.

Perla is a Mexican-American Trauma-informed Empowerment Coach and Restorative Justice Practitioner with 10+ years of social justice work in the nonprofit sector. Raised in Houston, she loves this city and dreams of seeing it become a haven for restorative justice. She brings her knowledge through lived experience in holding compassionate, healing-centered spaces for individuals navigating trauma, systemic harm, and identity-based oppression.

Amiyah Yates serves on the Restorative Houston Board of Directors with a passion for making change and uplifting young voices. She joined to help create opportunities for youth to be heard, gain experience in leadership, and take part in work that many her age don’t often get to do.

Parenthood Gulf Coast, Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, and on the Advisory Board of University of Houston’s Friends of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, and is an active volunteer in gun violence prevention efforts. Self-motivated and always challenging herself and others to continually delve deeper, Swati is an optimist at heart. Her activism is inspired by the resiliency of the human spirit. She looks forward to a day where people and organizations thrive by embracing and valuing differences in order to foster belonging. Swati is the mother of three sons and resides with her husband and their rescue dog, Aspen.

Dorit Price-Levine is a licensed attorney-mediator and a professional facilitator, specializing in supporting people to speak effectively across their differences on polarizing and divisive topics. Trained in Transformative Mediation and Non-Violent Communication, Dorit has worked with hundreds of institutions across the country. Her clients have included national nonprofits, corporations, universities, government agencies, and communities of faith. Previously a Senior Associate at the Consensus Building Institute and Deputy Director of

Resetting the Table, Dorit designs and leads communications skill-building workshops and facilitates conversations across divides. Dorit’s chosen path, promoting justice by bringing diverse groups together to explore their differences, was inspired by her experiences living for years in Palestine, Israel, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Dorit holds a JD from the UC Berkeley School of Law and a B.A. in Political Science and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Unique Simmons is an educator, youth advocate, and system disruptor committed to reimagining how we support the next generation. With a foundation in clinical counseling focused on youth and adolescents, her work lives at the intersection of mental health, research, and community-based application. At her core, she is a builder of people and systems. She designs experiences and ecosystems that strengthen emotional intelligence, expand imagination, and empower youth to move from survival to purpose. Alongside her community impact, she brings a strong corporate background in scaling high-performing teams, leading agile transformation, elevating multi-matrix collaboration, and developing organizational strategies that drive measurable results.

Her experience spans senior leadership roles across Global Enterprise Sales, Federal IT Support, Operations Management, and HR giving her a unique ability to bridge corporate strategy with community impact. She is deeply committed to social justice and mental wellness, and has had the privilege of teaching and facilitating across community spaces, corporations, and government organizations. Her recent partnerships with global change agents such as Belovd, Omek, and CoolxDad reflect her commitment to addressing the interconnected nature of social inequalities on a global scale. She has been a very committed volunteer at Restorative Houston as well as a valued community partner through her own non-profit, For the People Community.