Scholar, activist, theater director, actor, writer, producer, and spoken word artist Bryonn Bain joined the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance in 2018. Bain’s work uses the arts and activism to build movements for justice, criminal justice reform, prison education, and abolition. As the founding director of the UCLA Prison Education Program, Bain has drawn on his decades of work in prisons to establish opportunities for higher education, the arts, and research in southern California prisons. He is now developing course offerings in which UCLA faculty will teach university students alongside those who are incarcerated. He has a joint appointment with the Department of African American Studies where he has taught since 2015 while staging productions and serving as a supervisor for the UCLA School of Law International Human Rights Law Clinic.