Tisha Leonardo-Santiago
Director of Outreach, New Jersey Division on Civil Rights
2023
Tisha (Tee) Leonardo-Santiago is the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights’ first Latinx Director of Outreach and Community Relations. A second-generation Latinx Hudson County native and a first-generation college graduate earning their undergraduate and graduate degrees in Criminal Justice from New Jersey City University. In 2017, Tee joined DCR as a Bilingual Investigator in the Enforcement Unit, served as the bilingual subject matter expert for the New Jersey Bias Investigation Access System (NJBIAS) that launched in November 2020, and now serves as the Statewide NJBIAS Community Liaison. In March 2021, they were promoted to the newly created Community Relations Unit as the Bilingual Community Relations Specialist before becoming the unit Director.
The inaugural Eradicate Hate Summit was a truly impressive gathering of leaders dedicated to finding lasting and effective solutions to violent extremism. I was particularly moved by the prominence given to survivors and family members of victims of hate and violence throughout the event. Their stories and those of so many others must be at the center of what we do and why we do it.
