Aparna Polavarapu

Executive Director and Founder

Pronouns: she/they

Professor Aparna Polavarapu founded SCRJI in 2020. As SCRJI's Executive Director and Founder, Aparna oversees the development of restorative justice education and programming and works with organizations seeking to develop and implement their own restorative practices. She regularly speaks with local and national audiences on the use of restorative justice to address serious harms, including intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and incidents of hate.

Aparna’s experience with restorative justice comes from her human rights work. She has over a decade of experience working in human rights, especially focusing on how women’s rights can be promoted and inhibited by informal justice systems. Through her work in sub-Saharan Africa, Aparna came to understand and respect the contributions of community-driven justice practices.

Aparna is also a tenured Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, where she teaches courses in Restorative and Transformative Justice, Comparative Law, Rule of Law, Transnational Law, and International Human Rights Skills. She received an LLM and JD from Georgetown University Law Center, an MA in international affairs from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Aparna is also a commissioner on the South Carolina Access to Justice Commission, a facilitator with the University of South Carolina’s Collaborative on Race, and a Liberty Fellow under the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Georgia Higgins ("George")

Program Coodinator

Pronouns: she/they

Georgia Higgins began working with SCRJI as a part-time program associate in Fall 2020. Born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, she graduated from the Honors College at the University of South Carolina in 2017 with a B.A. in History focusing on the American South. She went on to attend law school at the University of South Carolina, graduating in 2020. During law school, George interned with the Richland County Public Defender’s Office and the Capital Division of the South Carolina Commission on Indigent Defense. She also served on the student boards of the Carolina Equality Alliance, Diversity & Inclusion Task Force, and Moot Court Bar.