Leadership and Staff - North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence

Chris Mumma, Executive Director

For nearly two decades, Chris Mumma has served as the Center’s Executive Director. Instrumental in fighting for criminal justice reform in North Carolina, Chris has spearheaded legislation on eyewitness identification, the recording of interrogations, preservation of biological evidence, enhanced support for exonerees, and the establishment of the only Innocence Inquiry Commission in the United States. As the Center’s Executive Director, she has represented a dozen individuals as they fought for their freedom and assisted in the investigation of many more exonerations across the State. Before joining the Center, Chris had a nine-year career in corporate finance at Nortel Networks. She then went on to attend law school and clerk for I. Beverly Lake, Jr., the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. She is the recipient of the 2007 Tar Heel of the Year Award, the 2008 Business Leader Magazine Pro Bono Impact Award, the 2009 Z. Smith Reynolds Susan Reynolds Award for Advocacy, the 2010 Advocates for Justice Kellie Crabtree Award, the 2012 Lawyer’s Weekly Women of Justice Public Service Practitioner Award, the 2014 Lawyer’s Weekly Barristers Breaking Barriers Award, the 2015 Indy Weekly Citizen of the Year Award, the 2017 NC Advocates for Justice Thurgood Marshall Award, and the 2018 NC Justice Center, Defender of Justice Litigation Award. She serves as a Commissioner on the Indigent Defense Services Commission and is a member of the Forensics Advisory Board.