Executive Director Shawn Armbrust has extensive experience in the innocence community. As an undergraduate at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Shawn was instrumental in achieving the 1999 death row exoneration of Anthony Porter. From 1999 to 2001, Shawn was the case coordinator at the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law, screening requests for counsel and coordinating public education events and development efforts. Through the Center, she also worked with the Commission appointed by former Illinois Governor George Ryan, who stayed and ultimately commuted all capital sentences in the state. From 2001 to 2004, Shawn was a Public Interest Law Scholar at the Georgetown Law, where she graduated magna cum laude. As a Senior Articles and Notes Editor of the American Criminal Law Review, she wrote her note on the compensation of the wrongfully convicted. Prior to coming to the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, Shawn clerked for the Honorable Gladys Kessler of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.  She is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law, is a member of the National Committee on the Right to Counsel, and is on the board of directors of the Innocence Network.

Assistant Director Elizabeth P. Raman comes to the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project with a strong background in criminal defense. Eily graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1990 and cum laude in 1994 from the Georgetown University Law Center, where she was Articles Editor of the American Criminal Law Review and a student attorney in the Georgetown Criminal Justice Clinic. Following law school, Eily spent two years clerking for the Honorable Edith Brown Clement of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. She then worked for a year as an associate at the District of Columbia law firm of Crowell & Moring LLP, where she focused on white collar and civil fraud defense. Prior to coming to the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, Eily spent five years as an Assistant Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt.  She is an Adjunct Professor at American University’s Washington College of Law.

Virginia DNA Attorney John Hardenbergh comes to the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project from the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office where he spent three years as the Associate State Legislative Counsel. He collaborated with the ACLU’s affiliates, helping them to develop strategy, evaluate state and federal legislative proposals, and draft legislation on a broad range of privacy, first amendment and civil rights issues. In this position, John played an instrumental role in enacting innocence protection statutes in a number of states. Prior to joining the ACLU, Hardenbergh worked as an immigration attorney in private practice. He represented clients in a variety of family, employment and asylum based immigration proceedings and continues to represent asylum seekers on a pro bono basis. He also wrote, with co-author Rachael Moshman, “The Color of Katrina: A Proposal to Allow Disparate Impact Environmental Claims,” which was published in the Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy. John graduated cum laude from the University of Arizona and the University of Arizona College Of Law.

Program Assistant Daniel Satin graduated in June 2009 from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Daniel spent his senior year at Medill working as an investigative journalist for the Medill Innocence Project. He was a part of a team of students working to exonerate Willie T. Donald, who was convicted of murder and armed robbery in Gary, Indiana, in 1992 and sentenced to 65 years in prison. While the case is currently pending, thanks in part to Daniel’s reporting, evidence has been uncovered that strongly points to Donald's innocence and demonstrates misconduct by the Lake County District Attorney's Office.