Melanie Brazzell (they/them) is a white queer social movement researcher residing on Ohlone land (Berkeley, California) who supports Just Beginnings Collaborative’s Wayfinding Project as a participatory action research consultant. Melanie is currently a dissertation fellow at the Center for Engaged Scholarship and a Chancellor’s fellow at the University of California Santa Barbara. Their dissertation focuses on transformative justice alternatives to prison and policing, particularly for gender-based violence. Melanie’s participatory research, community engagement, and movement support are housed within the “What Really Makes Us Safe”?” Project and draw upon their involvement in the feminist anti-violence movement for over fifteen years in both the U.S. and Germany.