Edwin Colfax is the Director of Grant Funding and administers the Commission's formula and discretionary funding for counties. Before joining the Texas Indigent Defense Commission in 2010, Edwin worked for the Washington D.C.-based Justice Project, dedicated to reducing the risks of wrongful convictions and enhancing the quality of indigent defense. Initially based at the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, he worked closely with the Center's director and attorneys on public education, research and legislative advocacy for reforms that enhance the reliability of evidence presented in criminal courts. In 2006 Edwin was assigned to Austin to implement the Justice Project's Texas program. Edwin also brings five years of private sector business experience. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he focused on philosophy and government. He later earned an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a concentration in ethics and political theory. While there he taught undergraduate courses in ethics, political philosophy and writing skills.