Our Team
Martha Escobar
Executive Director for Project Rebound CSUN
Martha D. Escobar is Professor in the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). She received her doctoral degree in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, San Diego. Escobar is the author of Captivity Beyond Prisons: Criminalization Experiences of Latina (Im)migrants (University of Texas Press, 2016), which received the National Association for Ethnic Studies’ 2017 Outstanding Book and Media Award.
In addition to her scholarship, Escobar has a strong commitment to promoting equity and social justice. She is the Executive Director for Project Rebound, a campus resource dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated students succeed at CSUN. She serves as chair of the Educational Equity Committee, which is part of the Faculty Senate and charged with examining educational equity on campus and making recommendations. Escobar is also an Advisory Board for the Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Américas (CESPA), which promotes interest in and knowledge of peoples descendent of Latin American communities through service, learning, and research. Finally, Escobar is a member of Civil Discourse and Social Change, a campus-wide initiative that promotes social justice at CSUN and beyond through educational programming and action.
Email: martha.d.escobar@csun.edu
Lily Gonzalez
Lily Gonzalez is the Program Coordinator for Project Rebound at CSUN, a CSU support program for formerly incarcerated students. She is a co-founder of Revolutionary Scholars, a student organization grounded in prison abolition and supporting formerly incarcerated and system impacted students. Lily has been awarded the Just Leadership USA, 2017 Leading with Conviction Fellowship, Rockwood Leadership Institute’s 2018 Returning Citizens Fellowship, and the CSUN 2018 Newman Civic Fellowship. She graduated from CSUN in 2017 with a B.A. in Chicana/o Studies, and is currently completing her Master’s in Arts in Chicana/o Studies.
Kevin Zemlicka, M.A.
Kevin Zemlicka is Senior Program Coordinator for Project Rebound at CSUN. Kevin is also the faculty advisor for Revolutionary Scholars, a student organization for formerly incarcerated and system-impacted students that works alongside Project Rebound. Kevin comes to this role with 11 years of academic advising experience at CSUN. Before stepping into this role, he had been a point of contact for Project Rebound staff and students to assist with any student services related questions. A double Matador, Kevin received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Department of Anthropology at CSUN, where he has also worked as a lecturer since 2018 teaching classes in applied anthropology, gender and culture, and the role of ethnography in studying globalization. Kevin received the Matador’s Rising, Student Success Champion award in 2021 from the office of the provost for advancing student success through mentorship, as well as the Student Success Impact award and the Outstanding Support and Service award in 2022 from the office of the dean in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Kevin believes strongly in the value of lived experience and always seeks to collaborate with a wide range of formerly incarcerated providers of reentry services as he works to put mechanisms in place to help folks heal and achieve their academic and professional goals.