Marika Pfefferkorn

Marika Pfefferkorn is co-founder Twin Cities Innovation Alliance (TCIA) and executive director of the Midwest Center for School Transformation (MCST). As an interdisciplinary and cross-sector thought leader and community advocate, Pfefferkorn is a change agent working to transform educational ecosystems. Ms. Pfefferkorn’s work begins in community and arcs to the regional and national scope. Her experience covers policy, leadership, research, community building, and engagement. She integrates cultural wisdom and the arts and applies a restorative lens to upend punitive conditions in education and society, leading with a vision for liberatory education. In an effort to disrupt the Cradle to Prison Algorithm (an expansion of the School to Prison Pipeline/ School and Prison Nexus), Ms. Pfefferkorn teaches, trains, and coaches youth, families, and systems on youth data criminalization at the intersection of education and technology. She co-powers with a diversity of communities to center data
justice through projects and programming like the No Data About Us Without Us Fellowship, Digital Justice Ideathon, and the National Youth Summit on Digital Justice. She has successfully co-led campaigns to end discriminatory suspension practices in Minnesota schools, to remove the presence of police in Minneapolis and St. Paul schools, to increase investment in indigenous restorative practices in education. She co-developed and co-teaches Carcerality and Education at Carleton College.
She is an co-founder and organizing member of Education for Liberation Minnesota Chapter, a founding member of the Racial Justice S.T.E.A.M. Collective and co-founder of the No Tech Criminalization in Education (NOTICE) Coalition, and the Stop the Cradle to Prison Algorithm Coalition.