Zoë Towns

Zoë Towns serves as the Executive Director of FWD.us. She launched the organization's criminal justice reform portfolio in 2017, establishing and leading its advocacy, policy, research, and philanthropic strategies. Since then, Zoë has directed a wide range of criminal justice reform efforts—administrative, ballot-based, electoral, and legislative—at both the state and federal levels across the United States.

Prior to her role at FWD.us, Zoë served as the Criminal Justice Project Director at the Pew Charitable Trusts. There, she partnered with state officials, system administrators, practitioners, and advocates to advance legislative reforms aimed at reducing prison populations in states including Mississippi, Oregon, Utah, and Louisiana. Earlier in her career, she was the founding director of The Bronx Freedom Fund, which operated a pioneering bail fund in the South Bronx to support individuals facing criminal charges, as well as a bond fund assisting immigrants in deportation proceedings.

Zoë holds a B.A. in Ethnic Studies and Creative Writing from Columbia University, where she was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellow. She earned a Master’s in Criminal Justice Policy from King’s College London as a Fulbright Scholar. Most recently, she was a Distinguished Teaching Fellow in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University.

She currently serves on the advisory boards of One for Justice, Recidiviz, and the Center for Just Journalism, and is a member of the board of directors for Civil Rights Corps.