is a trans, abolitionist, & harm reduction organizer who lives in NYC and received a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2022. As a former member of No New Jails NYC, they were part of the effort to force New York City to shut down Rikers Island Jail without building any new jails anywhere in the city, a fight that is ongoing. With the NYC Transformative Justice Hub, they participated in bringing political education and transformative justice practice spaces to NYC, and continue to organize with RAPP and the Parole Preparation Project to bring everybody home.

Their research argues that so-called “alternatives to incarceration” programs, like court-coerced drug rehabilitation, are not alternatives to criminalization. Focusing on the experiences of trans and cis working class women, primarily women of color, who use drugs, their work exposes how liberal imaginaries of rehabilitation function to extend carceral punishment under new, "gender-responsive," “therapeutic” guise. In this way, rehabilitation is part of a reformist project to stabilize white supremacy in the face of abolitionist challenges. 

Their work can be found in The Brooklyn Rail, Current Affairs, Harper's Bazaar, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Design & Culture, and City & Society, among other publications.

Beginning September, 2024, Nadja will be an assistant professor of anthropology at Trinity College.