Shaka Senghor is director's fellow of the MIT Media Lab., college lecturer, author, and was convicted of murder in American courts. As of October 2015, he also teaches a class as part of the Atonement Project, a partnership between him, the University of Michigan, and the MIT Media Lab.^[1] His memoir, Writing my Wrongs, was published in March 2016.^[2] Senghor was named to Oprah's SuperSoul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders in 2016.^[3]

Senghor was raised in a middle class family in Detroit during the 1980s.^[4] He ran away from an abusive home at the age of 14, after which he was convinced to join the illegal drug trade by more experienced dealers.^[5]

In the summer of 1991, Senghor shot and killed a man, after which he spent 19 years in different prisons in Michigan, seven years of which were in solitary confinement.^[5] Of these seven years, four and a half of the years he spent in solitary confinement were consecutive.^[6] He was released from prison in 2010.^[7]