Gabriella Celeste

Gabriella Celeste, J.D., is the Director of Child Policy at Case Western Reserve University’s Schubert Center for Child Studies. The Schubert Center bridges research, practice, policy and education for the well-being of children. She was instrumental in the development of a policy agenda for improvements in the juvenile justice system which were adopted in Ohio HB 86, HB 153 and SB 337 and is the principal author of a case study of this policy effort entitled, “A Bridge to Somewhere: How Research Made its Way into Legislative Juvenile Justice Reform in Ohio.” She teaches an undergraduate child policy curriculum and supervises Schubert’s child policy externship program. She has worked extensively with vulnerable children in various nonprofit and administrative roles, both directly and conducting applied research, evaluation and technical assistance for foundations, nonprofit and government agencies. Gabriella co-founded the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana in 1997, a nonprofit law practice that became a premier state-wide legal reform organization that successfully advanced alternatives to incarceration and spun-off a family engagement and alternative youth development program. She was recently appointed to the Ohio Public Defender Commission by Governor Kasich and currently sits on the Board of Directors for Magnolia Clubhouse, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey Community Advisory Board and the Cuyahoga County “Defending Childhood” Governing Board. She received her B.S. from Northwestern University and J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and lives with her husband and two sons in Shaker Heights, Ohio.