Team
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Andy Saunders
CO FOUNDER + CEO
Andy graduated from East Carolina University in 2012 with a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice with a concentration in Alcohol and Drug Studies. Upon graduation Andy served as a patrol and Crisis Intervention officer in Wilson North Carolina alongside New Blue Co-Founder, Brittany Nestor. During his service, Andy spent a large portion of his time supporting police-led youth programs and the local school district. After witnessing the school to prison pipeline firsthand, Andy refocused his leadership on k-12 classrooms. He went on to teach low income students of color with special needs as a Teach For America Corps Member. Today, Andy leads a portion of Teach For America’s national team where he is responsible for recruiting and placing more than 100 diverse college graduates as teachers in low income communities across the nation. Andy is a former elected member of a local Board of Education and holds a Master of Public Administration from Rutgers University.
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Brittany Nestor
CO FOUNDER + PRESIDENT
Brittany graduated from East Carolina University in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice. Brittany graduated from Basic Law Enforcement Training with the highest academic scores in her class. Brittany worked for Wilson North Carolina Police Department where she served as a patrol officer, Crisis Intervention officer, SWAT Operator, Juvenile Crimes Investigator, and Police Athletic/Activities League Board Member. Brittany went on to work for a different police department as an Investigator with Special Operations then promoted to Sergeant over training, hiring, and recruitment. Brittany currently works for Garner North Carolina Police Department and is assigned to the Special Victims Unit as an Investigator. Brittany is an instructor for new cadets in the Academy and leads a number of continued education courses. In her free time, Brittany volunteers as a youth basketball coach.
Kristin Daley, Executive Director
Kristin Daley is a communications/development strategist specializing in sexual violence, survivor-centric crisis response, and justice system reform. She holds a BA in Communications/Media Production from Northeastern University. Prior to joining New Blue as Executive Director, Kristin spent 16 years as Director of Development & Communications for Law Enforcement Action Partnership, police experts advocating for evidence-based reform; she now serves on LEAP’s Board of Directors. A nationally credentialed victim advocate, Kristin is a longtime crisis response counselor and liaison for RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline. She also trains nationally and consults privately on trauma-informed best practices and communications strategy with police, advocates, organizations and individual survivors challenging the justice system. In 2022, Kristin was appointed to the Peace Corps Sexual Assault Advisory Council, a panel of national subject matter experts in the field of sexual violence prevention and response. She is Chair of the 2023 Council.
Sergeant Meg Hamilton, Trustee
Meg Hamilton has served on the Madison (Wisconsin) Police Department for 16 years, and is currently the Sergeant of Community Outreach. She oversees two teams of officers focused on criminal diversion and deflection. The BJA funded "Addiction Resource Team" conducts post-opioid overdose outreach to individuals with substance use disorders, serving as a conduit to recovery resources. The Community Outreach and Resource Education (CORE) team seeks to engage in low-key, non-enforcement spaces with youth of color to build trust and transparency. In addition to those supervisory roles, Sgt Hamilton has championed restorative justice efforts in her community, and has referred over 540 individuals to one criminal diversion program alone.
In 2022, Sgt Hamilton was honored at the National Summit on Women in Law Enforcement for her work on "We are the 28," a nationally recognized project she undertook to highlight the remarkable individuals behind Madison PD's 28% female commissioned workforce. Sgt Hamilton was also invited to speak at the November (2022) 30x30 webinar on her efforts to recruit and retain women in policing.
Sgt Hamilton holds a bachelor's degree in Organizational Leadership from the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay, and has a certificate in Emergency Management. She is a lifelong reader and hopes to one day write a book on grief within policing.
Katelyn Gamache, Program Director
While attending UW-Madison and receiving a bachelor’s degree in Legal Studies and Criminal Justice, Katelyn’s desire to be involved in policing increased, as she saw it as a catalyst for change for the issues that existed within the criminal justice system. She started her career by becoming a law enforcement dispatcher for the UW-Madison Police Department (UWPD) for approximately three years before transitioning to a sworn capacity. Katelyn held many titles during her service, including UWPD's first therapy K9 handler, police training officer (PTO), peer support team member, OWI instructor, and more. Katelyn served her community at UW-Madison until 2024, when she joined New Blue as Program Director after participating in New Blue's 2023 fellowship cohort.
Dr. Kyle Dobson, Director of Research
Dr. Kyle Dobson is Co-Founder of the New Blue Solutions Lab and Assistant Professor of Leadership and Public Policy at the UVA Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, with a Ph.D. from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. His expertise is on how to build authentic connections with others and connection to one's own humanity in contexts where this is most challenging. Dr. Dobson has spent years in the field with police since 2017, doing hundreds of hours of interviews, ridealongs, field observations, and field experiments, to gain novel insights about how to develop community-police relationships. He has published research studying how disconnection from one's own humanity can lead to immoral behavior, and is developing a model of authentic policing, which focuses on interventions to build empathy, trust, and close connection between police and their communities.
Dr. Andrea Dittmann, Director of Research
Andrea Dittmann is Co-Founder of the New Blue Solutions Lab and Assistant Professor of Management & Organization at the USC Marshall School of Business. Dr. Dittmann completed her PhD in Management & Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She researches sources of and solutions to inequality in workplaces and organizations. In particular, she examines employees’ social class backgrounds as a critical but often overlooked source of diversity in professional workplaces. In another line of work, she examines how to intervene to improve relationships between police and their communities. Her work has been published in top academic outlets, including the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Her work has also been covered by media outlets including the Harvard Business Review, Politico, and the Atlantic.
Alexzandra Tellez, Intern
Born and raised in the Bronx, Alexzandra is an experienced nonprofit professional with expertise in project management, operations, and executive support. She currently serves as the Database and Office Manager for the Advancement Team at a New York City private school. Throughout her career, Alexzandra has contributed to organizations like Prep for Prep, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, and Teach for America. Alexzandra holds a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, with a concentration in Police Administration, and a Bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University in Sociology and Forensic Science.
Jon Saunders, Business Advisor
Jon Saunders is Chief Operations Officer of SunCulture, an innovative Africa-based agritech company. SunCulture develops and commercializes life-changing technology to solve the biggest daily challenges of the world's 570M smallholder farming households. Jon has a track-record in building infrastructure for growth stage organizations that leads to institutional and governmental investments. As SunCulture’s first Director of Finance & Operations, and now COO, he established the human resources, finance and accounting, sales, supply chain, and IT infrastructure that have garnered investment from international investors, significant sales growth, and tripled headcount. Jon’s passion for creating social impact through operational excellence led him from a five-year career in private banking at J.P. Morgan to nearly ten years in social impact investing and operational leadership in African start-ups. Over his career he has worked for clients and organizations in Central America, Africa, and North America. Jon earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University and B.A. in Finance from Fordham University. In his free time, Jon enjoys playing competitive hockey and currently plays for the Nairobi Ice Lions, after playing Division I in college. He is a New Jersey-native, and currently based between Nairobi and London.
Captain Ronald S. Johnson, Advisor
Retired Captain Ronald S. Johnson joined the Missouri State Highway Patrol on July 1, 1987. After graduation, he was assigned to Troop C St. Louis. In 1995, he was promoted to corporal and designated assistant zone commander. In 1997, he was promoted to sergeant and designated zone commander. In October 1999, Captain Johnson was promoted to lieutenant and transferred to Troop A, Lee's Summit. In 2002, he was promoted to captain and returned to Troop C as commanding officer. On August 14, 2014, Governor Jay Nixon appointed Captain Johnson to lead protest security in Ferguson, Missouri, following the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, Jr. In 2017, Captain Johnson was designated as Director of the Highway Patrol's newly created Office of Community Engagement and Outreach. Captain Johnson retired from the Missouri State Highway Patrol on November 1, 2018 after 31 years of service.
Captain Johnson was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He holds a criminal justice degree, is a graduate of Northwestern University Traffic Institute of Police Staff and Command, and a 2014 graduate of the National Federal Bureau of Investigation Academy. He is certified in police instruction and the development/implementation of Assessment Center exercises formatted for command level staff officers. He currently serves on various committees within the community.
Captain Johnson has received numerous awards and recognitions for his Service. Captain Johnson and his wife Lori have been married for over thirty years and have two adult children, a daughter-in-law and a granddaughter.
Aviva Jacobs, Advisor
Aviva serves as a Senior Program Officer for US Jewish Grantmaking at the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, where she brings her commitment to equity and community to her work. As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, advocating for justice is in her blood, and it's fueled her career where she's spent time as an educator, system leader, and now as a grantmaker. Prior to joining the Schusterman team, Aviva served as the Vice President of Recruitment with Teach For America from 2015-2019, leading a team of 50 to help bring diverse leaders into the field of fighting for educational equity. Before that, she oversaw the Teach For America-Chicago’s teacher training and support team from 2008-2014, where she led the team to achieve the strongest student achievement results in the country for three consecutive years. Aviva received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Michigan, where she played on the Women’s Varsity soccer team (Go Blue!), and her Master of Education from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Aviva started her career as an Elementary Special Education teacher in New Orleans as a 2003 Teach For America corps member. She resides in her hometown of Washington, D.C. with her spirited 2.5-year-old.