Our People
The Restorative Lab has staff, associates and fellows with diverse knowledge, experience and backgrounds.
Jennifer Llewellyn, Director
Jennifer Llewellyn is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and the Chair in Restorative Justice (with funding support from the Sobey Family Foundation) at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. She previously held the Yogis and Keddy Chair in Human Rights Law and the Viscount Bennett Professorship in Law, at the Schulich School of Law. She has published extensively on the theory and practice of a restorative approach. Her teaching and research are focused on the areas of relational theory, restorative justice, truth commissions, peacebuilding, international and domestic human rights law. She was previously the Director of the Nova Scotia Restorative Justice Community Research Alliance (NSRJ-CURA). Her scholarship and practice has been ground-breaking for justice systems and other social institutions. It has affected justice reforms, human rights protection, public inquiries, disciplinary processes, and international peacebuilding and reconciliation. She is the recipient of the Ron Wiebe National Restorative Justice Award, the 2018 Social Science and Humanities Research Council Impact Award and the 2019 President’s Research Excellence Award.
Read Jennifer Llewellyn’s full biography
Chrystal Gray, Project Manager
Chrystal Gray has a long career in administration and project management, spanning 40 years. Began working with Jennifer Llewellyn in 2008 as Project Manager for (NSRJ-CURA), a collaborative research partnership between university and community partners. The partnership was funded primarily through a five-year, million dollar grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) through their CURA program. Since 2008, Chrystal has continued to work with Jennifer on various restorative justice projects, including international and national conferences focusing on Restorative Justice and now providing critical support to the Restorative Lab.
Kathryn Bliss, Associate Director
Kathryn Bliss has spent over 10 years working in the areas of restorative justice and criminal justice policy at the national level. Most recently she worked to establish CoSA Canada as the national organization for Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA), a restorative justice-based reintegration program for individuals who have served time for a sexual offence. Prior to this she worked in a variety of roles focused on public education and engagement of restorative justice principles. Kathryn was formerly a fellow with the Nova Scotia Restorative Justice – Community University Research Alliance (NSRJ-CURA) where she studied public opinion of restorative justice, focused on how people understand justice.
Sophie Watts, Senior Fellow
Sophie Watts joined the Lab in 2025 to work on the Restorative Sports Project that is carried out in connection with MITACS and Sport Nova Scotia. In this role, Sophie is working to advance how a restorative approach can foster safer sport environments and support meaningful culture change in sport. A former competitive track and field athlete, Sophie’s path to restorative work began through firsthand experience in a restorative justice process related to maltreatment in sport. She completed a PhD in Agricultural Science as a Vanier Scholar at Dalhousie University, and postdoctoral research at ETH Zurich with the support of an NSERC Postdoctoral Research Award. Sophie brings a strong research background to her work in the Lab and a particular interest in exploring the contribution a restorative approach can make for building trust in science and fostering positive shifts in academic research culture.
Associates
Kerry Clamp
Fellows
