Sean Kyler is a founding member of Voices From Within and a directly impacted leader who spent 24½ years in New York State prisons, including time at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. While incarcerated, he earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree and became a mentor to others inside, using education, storytelling, and peer support to help younger men confront the realities of violence and imagine a different future.

Today, Sean serves as the associate director of operations for Advocacy & Partnerships at the Vera Institute of Justice, where he helps drive campaigns to expand parole, reduce incarceration, and improve conditions behind the walls—including work on parole reform, solitary confinement, and forced prison labor.

He speaks nationally about reentry and second chances, including with the American Bar Association’s Civil Rights and Social Justice Section, and brings that policy experience together with his lived experience through Voices From Within to help communities, systems, and young people hear directly from those most affected by crime and incarceration.