Biography of Lorenn Walker

View Lorenn Walker's CV (Adobe Acrobat 60K PDF)

Lorenn Walker lives in Hawai'i and is public health educator and trainer whose work focuses on violence prevention and resiliency development. She is a also a personal life coach. She has written and researched for academic journals since 1996. Many of her articles have been published since 1999. One article was cited in a brief submitted to the United States Supreme Court in July 2002 on behalf of a man on death row who was sentenced as a minor.

Lorenn develops restorative justice programs. In addition to researching and writing about the programs, she is a hands-on practioner, who also implements them. Her unique background enables her to reach out to both victims and perpetrators of crime.

Although she lived on her own when she was 14 years old, dropped out of high school at 15, was adjudicated as a juvenile offender and seriously injured in an assault, Lorenn put herself through college, law school and earned a masters degree in public health.

A life-long surfer, former champion windsurfer, triathlete, wife, mother of three children, and grandmother of three, Lorenn is living proof of how to transform conflict into resiliency.

In 1999, at the age of 47, Lorenn was the Hawai'i State Woman's Windsurfing Champion. In 2002 and 2003 she competed in the Kona Ironman Triathlon World Championships. Within a week of the Kona races, she competed in the Xterra World Championships, a rugged off-road mountain bike triathlon on Maui. She is the first woman over forty to do both grueling races, called The Double, in the same year. She has been sponsored for athletic performances for many years.

Lorenn is a "recovering litigator." From 1984 to 1994 she was a Hawai'i state deputy attorney general. From 1994 to 1999 she represented children's rights in family court. In 1998 and 1999 she was the President of the Child and Family Advocacy Section of the Hawai‘i State Bar Association.

In her late teens and early twenties she was a Montessori preschool and kindergarten teacher in Santa Cruz, California. She became the school director when she was 22 years old. In 1975 she moved to Hawaii and in 1980 she received her B.A. in Communication from the University of Hawai'i. In 1983 she earned a juris doctorate degree from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. In 1996 she received a masters degree in health education from the University of Hawai'i School of Public Health.

Lorenn currently teaches communication courses, and has also taught business and administration of justice for the University of Hawai‘i. Lorenn frequently speaks on health issues and conflict resolution, and has been interviewed by newspapers, television and radio numerous times.

Lorenn Walker currently lives with her husband and teenage son on the beach on the North Shore of O'ahu.