Natalia Ilyniak is a first-year PhD student in Sociology at the University of Tennessee Knoxville and research assistant with the Appalachian Justice Research Center. She is a first generation Canadian on her mom’s side and second generation on her dad’s; both families immigrated from Ukraine. Her work on decolonial justice, transformative justice, and abolition is grounded in her own family history and upbringing on the settler-colonized Canadian Prairies.

She brings an array of work experience to her concentration in Criminology, including 12 years as Program Director at non-profit Circles of Support and Accountability, a restorative justice initiative supporting people integrating into the community after incarceration. She worked as a researcher with Correctional Services of Canada, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, the Public Interest Law Centre Winnipeg, and as a Gladue/Pre-Sentence report writer with Manitoba Justice. She is active in grassroots movements led by Unist’ot’en land defenders in Wet’suwet’en, Hydro-impacted Indigenous communities in Northern Manitoba, and volunteered for the abolitionist prisoner solidarity group Bar None’s Prison Rideshare Program. She received her Sociology MA from the University of Manitoba and BA’s in Sociology and Conflict Resolution Studies from the University of Winnipeg.