CCJ Directory

As Executive Vice President at Andrew W Mellon Foundation, Stewart works closely with the Foundation’s president, board, and staff to shape the Foundation’s funding priorities and programmatic direction. Prior to joining the Foundation, Carter served as a managing director of the venture philanthropy Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK) where he played a lead role in sourcing new investments and grantees—primarily early-stage, justice-oriented organizations—and then worked closely with those organizations on strategy, scaling, organizational capacity building, and leadership development. Carter previously taught “Lawyers as Leaders” at the Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, and he was the lead investigator and co-author of a research evaluation of the City of Columbus, Ohio’s response to the 2020 summer protests.

Before DRK, Carter served as the presidentially-appointed US Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. In this role, he was responsible for prosecuting federal crime in a district which included Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton. Carter emphasized deterrence, crime prevention and alternatives to incarceration in his work. He created the district’s first community outreach position and established a community leadership committee geared toward building trust and improving communication between the public and law enforcement. He created the district’s first diversion program to allow individuals a means of avoiding a felony record while still being held accountable for their wrong-doing.

Carter also took a leadership role at DOJ in addressing inequities in the criminal justice system through his work raising awareness about the school to prison pipeline and by chairing a working group of U.S. Attorneys focused on reducing racial disparities in the federal system. Carter also served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee and chaired the Attorney General’s Child Exploitation Working Group. He previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in San Jose, CA, and he was a litigator at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP in Columbus, OH, and Bingham McCutchen LLP in San Francisco, CA. Prior to law school, Carter was a New York City Urban Fellow and then taught history at Friends Seminary High School and in the Prep for Prep program.

Carter received a JD from Harvard Law School and holds an MA in Education Policy from Columbia University and received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Stanford University. After law school, Carter clerked for the Honorable Robert L. Carter, U.S. District Judge in the Southern District of New York, and the Honorable Raymond L. Finch, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of the Virgin Islands.