Chris Bridges is a Program Officer for the Steans Family Foundation’s Policy & Ecosystem portfolio. In his role, Chris focuses on Community Safety & Well-being, inclusive of issue areas such as violence prevention (including mental health and youth development), community violence intervention, policing reform, criminal legal system reform, and re-entry policy. Chris works to support organizations seeking to address and disrupt disparities in community health, wellness, safety, and economic growth.
Prior to joining the Steans Family Foundation, Chris was Program Counsel and the Coordinator for Strategic Partnerships and Community Engagement at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and worked across three core program areas: Education Equity, Anti-Solitary Confinement, and Economic Justice. Chris also worked for the Equal Justice Society in Oakland, CA on their Education Equity Team, focusing on race discrimination and strategic litigation matters, and also managed their Implicit Bias training program, where he helped develop a nation-wide network of implicit bias activists, researchers, and policy advocates, and delivered implicit bias trainings across the country to a variety of audiences including lawyers, state and federal judges, parents, teachers, community organizations, medical professionals, and more. Chris began his legal career in 2012 with the ACLU of Northern California as the Racial Justice Project Fellow, where he also worked on school-to-prison pipeline and race discrimination issues.
Chris obtained his JD from Northeastern University School of Law. He also holds a Master of Science in Criminal Justice, with a certificate of distinguishment in counterterrorism and intelligence analysis, from Michigan State University, and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice, both from North Carolina Central University.
Chris is an avid billiards player and has a special pool cue named “Lucille”. Rest in peace Uncle Phil. If you know, you know.