Opening Plenary: A Conversation on Legacy, Leadership, and the Future of Community Supervision

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Ms. Cunningham has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and master’s degrees in criminal justice and public administration. She served as a justice system practitioner and reentry professional for more than 30 years – holding the top leadership position in two of the largest community corrections agencies in America – Department of Criminal Justice-Parole (Texas) where she led a team of 2400 employees and managed a nearly $200 million budget and the Cook County Adult Probation Department (Chicago) which is in the largest unified court system in the world. She also performed related work in the private and not-for-profit space, including a period at the Vera Institute of Justice. Ms. Cunningham is currently pursuing credentials as a certified meeting planner and a certified association executive. She is a proud member of a number of professional organizations; recipient of numerous awards and recognitions; published in justice industry journals; actively supports three think tanks and task forces; and proudly serves on two volunteer board of directors.

Marcus was named Associate Director for Court Services Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) in Washington DC in 2017, following a 25-year career with the Virginia Department of Corrections. He served as President of the National Association of Probation Executives (NAPE) from 2014-2018 and is currently President-elect of the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA). He also assists in facilitating the American Probation and Parole Association Leadership Academy. His agency (CSOSA) embraces the approach of responsible utilization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it has the potential to revolutionize community corrections by making processes more efficient, effective, and equitable.

Dan Slepian is an award-winning journalist at NBC News and Senior Investigative Producer at Dateline. For 30 years, he’s built trust in prison visiting rooms, followed trails, and has turned long-shot stories into national reckonings. In 2025, Slepian won the News & Documentary Emmy for The Sing Sing Chronicles. In 2024, he was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Letters From Sing Sing, an eight-episode podcast that debuted at #1 on Apple’s top charts. His debut book, The Sing Sing Files: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice, was published in September 2024. Dubbed a “TV news gumshoe” by The New York Times, Slepian’s investigations have helped solve cold cases, exonerate the innocent, and inspire legal reform. At NBC, he’s produced dozens of documentaries, hidden-camera investigations, and breaking news specials — driven by relentless reporting, access, and empathy. He developed and helmed several limited series—including The Widower, a five-hour docuseries chronicling his 13-year investigation into a man accused of murdering multiple wives. Slepian is best known for uncovering wrongful convictions and exposing systemic flaws in the U.S. criminal legal system. His work on these issues has earned more than a dozen Emmy nominations for stories that challenged institutions and changed lives. For more than a decade, he has collaborated closely with anchor Lester Holt on justice-focused reporting. Their projects include Justice for All, a weeklong series that led to two Emmy-nominated specials: Life Inside, in which they spent two nights on death row at Angola Prison in Louisiana, and a historic town hall inside Sing Sing, the first ever broadcast from a maximum-security prison. In 2018, Slepian secured exclusive access to rapper Meek Mill on the day of his high-profile release from prison. Dateline’s special Dreams and Nightmares featured Holt’s interview with Mill, just hours after he walked free. Slepian’s reporting has been featured by outlets including The New York Times, Meet the Press, PBS NewsHour, Today, Vanity Fair, NBC Nightly News, Rolling Stone, People, Vibe, The Hollywood Reporter, and the podcast Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard. Slepian is also a co-founder of the nonprofit Voices From Within, which provides storytelling and mentorship for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. B