Monica Szlekovics serves as the Project Coordinator of the Survivors Justice Project. She is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology in 2009.

In January of 2020, after serving 23 years of a life sentence, Monica was granted clemency, an extraordinary executive remedy that has rarely been applied in murder cases in the past 30 years. In granting clemency, former Governor Andrew Cuomo recognized that Monica’s conviction, stemming from a 1996 capital murder case, was the direct result of extreme gender-based violence. Monica resides in Rochester, New York, where she continues to support prison education programs and criminalized victims of gender based violence through various organizations. She regularly presents on domestic violence, trauma, and incarceration, and is an accomplished artist and published essayist.