Prior to becoming the National Mitigation Coordinator is 2020, Dana Cook was the co-founder and co-director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation (ACCR) from 2010-2020. ACCR is a resource center that provides trial level consultation and training in death penalty and juvenile life without parole cases in Pennsylvania. ACCR also works to address systemic problems in the administration of the death penalty in various ways, including impact litigation and policy reform. She recently served on the Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment and Subcommittee on Policy, promulgated by the Pennsylvania State Senate. Prior to that, she worked at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, both as a social worker and a mitigation specialist. She began in the Juvenile Special Defense Unit representing Direct File Juveniles. After working in that unit for two years, she worked in the Homicide/Special Defense Unit as a mitigation specialist. There she represented capital and non-capital clients charged with homicide. Prior to working at the Defender, she was an investigator in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Defender Office in Philadelphia. She began her career as an investigator at the Post-Conviction Defender Office in Nashville, TN. She received her B.S. in Criminal Justice Administration in 1996 from Middle Tennessee State University and her Masters of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003.