Joanna Visser Adjoian, Esq.

Advisory Board

pronouns: she/her

Joanna Visser Adjoian, Esq., is the co-founder and past co-director of the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project, where she led the reentry team for youth and Juvenile Lifers and did policy advocacy work. Prior to co-founding YSRP, Joanna served as Associate Director and Staff Attorney of the Toll Public Interest Center at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she oversaw the Center’s 26 student pro bono projects. Before joining the Toll Center, Joanna completed a Penn Law Postgraduate Fellowship at Juvenile Law Center, where she advanced efforts to end the practice of sentencing children to life in prison without parole, including co-authoring an Amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case of Miller v. Alabama.

Joanna is a 2014 Echoing Green Fellow, a 2016 Claneil Emerging Leader Fellow, a 2016 recipient of the Penn Law Young Alumni Award, a 2017 recipient of the Penn Law Alan Lerner Rising Star Award, and was honored to receive the 2019 Haddon, McClellan, and Richardson Award from the Temple University Black Law Students Association. She is also a published author, including articles in The Champion, Court Review Journal, for the Defense, and The Legal Intelligencer. Joanna is a member of the Board of Directors of the Defender Association of Philadelphia and the Toll Public Interest Center Advisory Board at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Joanna received both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.