Speakers

Amanda Litman Co-Founder and Executive Director, Run for Something

Hillary Clinton’s email director. (The other emails.) Responsible for raising more than $330 million online. Charlie Crist’s digital director when he ran for governor in 2014. One of the first employees at Organizing for Action as deputy email director. Email writer for Barack Obama’s re-elect. Northwestern University graduate. Bookworm. Feminist. Nationals fan. Dog owner.

Amanda Coulombe General Manager of Organizing, NGP VAN

Amanda is the General Manager of Organizing at NGP VAN. Previously, she spent five years in our Product department, working with national and international clients to improve and develop new features, and eventually leading the team that helps campaigns and organizations maximize NGP VAN’s organizing tools to win in the field. Amanda believes strongly in marrying new technology with traditional organizing best practices to achieve efficient, grassroots-driven field campaigns. She has also spent more than a decade working in field and get out the vote (GOTV) operations on local, state, and national campaigns, including as the Statewide GOTV Director for both Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Ed Markey in her home state of Massachusetts. In her spare time, Amanda loves to read, travel, and shamelessly devour any Bravo reality show with her dog, Rondo.

Esha Rakhit Senior Product Manager, TurboVote, Democracy Works

Esha is a product manager with eight years of experience in the progressive tech space. She spends most of her non-spare time thinking about elections, end users of tools, and how to best serve both. Esha also enjoys painting, NPR, and escapist fiction.

Michelle Penson Senior Strategist & Data Lead, AFL-CIO

Michelle Penson is a social justice activist, proud Communications Workers of America union member and leads the National Data and Analytics Team for the AFL-CIO. Her nine-person team is a part of the Data Analytics and Infrastructure Resource of the Federation and supports all of the work of the AFL-CIO, its state and local federations, and its 55 national member affiliates.

Prior to working for the AFL-CIO, she worked as the National Data Manager and then the National Data Director for the PICO National Network and before that was the New Mexico Data and Targeting Manager for America Votes and State Voices.

When she's not working, she spends as much time as possible finding reasons to use Global Entry and attempting to finish War and Peace. Her roots are in New Mexico but she currently calls Washington, D.C. home.

Becca Siegel Data Scientist, BlueLabs

Becca has worked in progressive politics since 2008. A Colorado-native and graduate of Stanford University, she has served on campaigns at all levels, including leading the analytics team in Ohio for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid. This year, she will complete her masters degree at Columbia University, studying applied statistics. At BlueLabs since 2015, Becca works with organizations, companies, and campaigns of all sizes to build and implement analytic products and provide strategic data consulting. She helped Ralph Northam and Virginia Democrats win elections in 2017, and recently had work featured in The Washington Post and Cosmopolitan. She has worked on three presidential campaigns, played in two bluegrass bands, and fallen - accidentally - in one manhole.

Robin Terry Operations Lead, General Assembly

Robin Terry is the current Operations Lead and Marketing Producer for General Assembly, the leading global education startup that specializes in the most in-demand skills in technology, marketing, and data. While pursuing her undergrad degree in International Relations at the University of Arkansas, she spent semesters abroad in Paris, Cannes and New York University, where she further honed her French language abilities and diplomacy skills. Robin received a Master's in Global Communication from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, which led to her first post in Digital Communications at the U.S. Department of State in the Secretary's Cabinet. Prior to her current role at General Assembly, she served as Communications Advisor to the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. In addition to being a communications and marketing leader, Robin loves wine and snow boarding.

Angelica Morales Data Scientist, Self-Employed

Angelica Morales is an Data Scientist and has worked for many organizations including labor unions, the Analyst Institute and other organizations. She specializes in managing and implementing experimental designs. She is passionate about making experiments more accessible to the progressive community. When she is not working, she likes to bake and salsa dance.

Jenn Cervella Data and Targeting Specialist, AFSCME

Jenn Cervella has worked in politics for the better part of a decade, ranging from organizing for Reproductive and Environmental Justice, electing Democrats up and down the ballot and fighting for dignity in all work with the Labor Movement. She is currently based in DC and when not analyzing social behaviors, she is watching baseball with her cats. Before working in electoral politics, she started working for social justice campaigns in Los Angeles and Austin. She was with Equality California in 2011 and Clean Water Action in 2012.

Hillary Anderson Account Executive, Catalist

Hillary Anderson is an Account Executive at Catalist. She has worked in progressive political data since 2014 starting out as the Voter File Manager for the Indiana Democratic. During the 2016 cycle, she was a Regional Targeting Director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. While growing her own skills, Hillary has trained others as a SQL instructor for Change the Game and as a volunteer for Black Girls Code.

Sonya Reynolds Data Director / Principal / Treasurer / Vice Chair & VP of Diversity & Inclusion, Colibri Labs / NY Civic Engagement Table / Progressive HackNight / OSDI

Sonya has been putting her data expertise to use supporting grassroots organizing for over 7 years. She has served on the steering committees of both Progressive Hacknight and Participatory Budgeting (PB) NYC, is a member of the North American PB Research Board, is the acting chair of OSDI, the co-chair of the PBNYC Citywide Committee and is a Data Security and Privacy trainer for Justice Works Conference and NYC Stronger Communities, a project of Research Action Design (RAD), Mozilla Foundation, and New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA.)

Emma Akpan Client Success Manager, Hustle

Emma Akpan is her mother’s daughter, a wayward church girl, and her heart rests with Black girls everywhere. She loves organizing because we get to connect the stuff that our people and community care most about with the powers that can tangibly address our concerns. She’s developed a passion in women’s reproductive health policy by volunteering at Planned Parenthood and frequently speaking at rallies and at the state legislature on reproductive health policy. In her work like she’s worked at the North Carolina state table, been an organizer at Planned Parenthood, and a data director at NextGen Climate. Currently she's on the team at Hustle.

Elyse Ross Weiss ,

Elyse started her political data career on the 2012 OFA-Ohio Data Team. She then joined the 2014 North Carolina Coordinated Campaign as Data Director. After that, she joined Civis Analytics, working on political, non-profit, and government projects, before moving to Philadelphia last summer. Since, she has worked as a consultant, helping a diverse array of clients get their data from Point A to Point B, combining it along the way, and make data-driven decisions. In her free time, Elyse consumes most of the terrible reality television available, while also enjoying the amazing restaurants Philadelphia has to offer.

Karuna Koppula Senior Political Associate, Analyst Institute

Karuna Koppula is a Senior Political Associate at the Analyst Institute, where she works with internal and external partners to deploy evidence-driven strategies. Before joining the Analyst Institute, Karuna was a Field Director in her home district of CA-10 and a Field Organizer for President Obama`s re-election campaign in Ohio.

Kim Davidson Agile Project Manager, CivicActions

Kim Davidson is an Agile Project Manager at CivicActions, an agency that builds open source solutions for government agencies at all levels. She is currently CivicActions' Open Data Lead and product manager of DKAN, an open source open data application. Previously, she worked at Advomatic, managing open source technology projects for progressive nonprofits. And before that, she was Community Manager at Idealist.org. Outside of work, Kim also teaches a weekly Tahitian dance class and microwaves things from Trader Joe's.

Cindy Sui Analyst + Data Science, Clarity Campaign Labs

Cindy Sui is an Analyst at Clarity Campaign Labs and has worked on polling & modeling projects up and down the ballot since joining Clarity in 2015. Cindy loves to use data to figure out what's working, how better to communicate with people, and how to drive behavior change. Before catching the political bug, Cindy worked in global health nonprofits in Boston and Lima, Peru, as well as a healthcare technology company in Chicago. As part of her commitment to intersectionality, she currently advises a number of nonprofits and startups in DC working on criminal justice reform, peace education and digital organizing. Cindy loves to meet new people, drink keto coffee, and watch murder-mystery shows.

Maya Yair Digital Data Manager, Indivisible

Maya Yair is the Digital Data Manager at Indivisible, where she enhances digital communications with analytics and testing. Previously she served as an Analyst and Associate Strategist at Analyst Institute. Maya's roots are in electoral campaigns, where she has worked in organizing and development roles. In her spare time, she can be found taking on demanding cooking projects and hanging out with her cat.

Riki Conrey Senior Scientist, Catalist

Riki is a computational social scientist with a focus on attitude measurement and change. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology from Northwestern University and worked as a survey methodologist for several years before she was drawn away by bigger data. Now, she builds predictive models and big data systems using voter files, poll results, social media, and anything else she finds lying around.

Bridgit Donnelly Director of Data and Analytics, NYC Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit

Bridgit Donnelly is the Director of Data & Analytics for the NYC Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit. Her team supports proactive, data-driven outreach programs that help New Yorkers acquire city services, such as healthcare and housing resources. Prior to joining city government, Bridgit spent seven years in the political campaign space, most recently for Hillary for America as the data science project manager and head of the early vote data program. She also has run a number of data trainings over the last several years, starting with the New Organizing Institute as their Data Training Manager. Bridgit has an MS in Computational Analysis and Public Policy from the University of Chicago and a BA in Political Science from Barnard University. In her spare time, you’ll find Bridgit cooking her latest Blue Apron meal or traveling and exploring new cities.

Molly Graepel Analyst, Blue State Digital

Molly has worked in analytics and data science in both the political and nonprofit sector for five years. She is currently an analyst at Blue State Digital, where she guides data strategy for some of the largest nonprofits in the US. Before working at Blue State Digital, Molly was an analyst on Hillary for America's analytics team for over a year-and-a half and received her graduate degree from Harvard University.

Lauren Barth Associate Digital Analyst, Blue State Digital

Lauren works in analytics at Blue State Digital, where she helps clients optimize their sites, segment their audiences, and make the awesome work they are doing even better. She loves using individual-level data to identify trends and create a unique and personal experience for each constituent.

Before wrangling data for Blue State, she wrangled volunteers for the Arlington-Alexandria Coalition for the Homeless, managed digital fundraising at Bread for the World, and completed her MPP at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

Kim Lammers Data Analyst, Uplift Education

Kim Lammers is a Data Analyst from Uplift Education. Uplift Education is the largest charter school network in Texas and serves low-income K-12 students in the greater DFW area. Before coming to Uplift, Kim taught high school math with Teach For America in Alabama. She is interested in helping schools use their data to improve educational outcomes for kids.

Olivia Robinson Political Analyst, Analyst Institute

Olivia Robinson joined AI as an intern in 2015, was a Political Associate during the 2016 cycle, and is now a Political Analyst. She continues to wear many hats at AI -- she analyzes experiments, builds tools to make experimentation easier, and helps manage the Analyst Group. She is passionate about making research useful and easy to understand, especially for traditionally under-resourced groups that may not be able to run experiments. Olivia graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Washington University in St. Louis, where she organized for racial and economic justice with the Fight for 15 campaign and St. Louis Students in Solidarity. Olivia speaks conversational Mandarin, obsesses over sci-fi TV shows and podcasts, and is better than you at ultimate frisbee.

Jennifer Willis Technical Product Manager, NGP VAN

Jennifer Willis is a Product Manager for Organizing for NGP VAN - the leading technology provider to Democratic and progressive campaigns, organizations, and non-profits - where her focus is supporting field campaigns. For the better part of a decade, her focus, and passion, has been creating tools to increase field operation efficiency and tracking voter turnout. Jennifer has a long history of working on and consulting for political campaigns, including Elizabeth Warren's 2012 Senate campaign. In her spare time she is an evangelist for MiniVAN and is an avid traveler - if you ask nicely, she may tell you where to find the best macarons.

Kate Dahl National Data & Analytics Director, For Our Future & For Our Future Action Fund

Kate has been working in progressive data for the better part of a decade – currently she’s the National Data and Analytics Director with For Our Future, one of the largest independent expenditure organizations that focuses on face-to-face conversations with voters about the issues that matter most. Kate got her start in the data world as Summer Organizing fellow for OFA and ran from there. Other previous roles include President Obama’s 2012 Reelection campaign, the 2013 Presidential Inaugural committee, Enroll America, and Blue Labs. In her spare time, she thinks about her true loves – strong management, efficient data infrastructure, and engaging data visualizations.

Emily Norman Vice President, Analytics, Global Strategy Group

Emily is currently the Vice President and head of Analytics at Global Strategy Group after founding the practice in 2016. Emily started off her career working at McKinsey & Company, specializing in consumer insights and predictive modeling. In 2010, she took that experience to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) where she oversaw analytics and polling for all targeted races in the west and southwest regions. She left the DNC only to become a founding member of Obama’s 2012 analytics team heading national constituency analytics and finishing the cycle as the Data Director in Colorado. Emily recently completed a Master’s of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, while simultaneously consulting on a variety of analytics projects for clients, including the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, Oscar Health, EMILY’s List, the AFL-CIO, and Hillary for America.

Alison Ge Rising Data Director, NextGen

Alison manages the data component of NextGen's Rising Program - the ten-state electoral effort focused on youth voter registration, motivation, and turnout. In a previous role with NextGen in 2017, she worked to engage college students all over Virginia, one petting zoo and one giant unicorn float at a time. Prior to her work at NextGen and Hillary for America (Ohio), Alison worked in economic consulting, specializing in anti-trust policy and anti-competitive litigation. In her spare time, Alison serves as a counselor an on after-abortion healing talkline and teaches aerial arts.

Audra Grassia Political & Government Lead, Wickr

Audra is currently the Political and Government Lead for Wickr, Inc - a best-in-class privacy communications company. Prior to joining Wickr, Audra spent over 14 years as a political operative and consultant, working on campaigns at every level. Audra has also spent time managing technical programs in the defense, corporate, and healthcare spheres. Her experience and training as an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Army Reserves further inform her views on cybersecurity.

Originally from Sugar Land, TX, Audra graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in Government. She also received her Masters in Public Health from Washington University in St. Louis.

Stephanie Hendrick Regional Targeting Director, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

Stephanie is a progressive data professional who is motivated by using data to create stronger communities through organizing. She started out as a field organizer in Florida for Organizing for America and later Enroll America, has worked on local and statewide races as a data analyst in Florida and Virginia, and had the honor of being a States Analyst at Hillary for America for 23 presidential caucuses and primaries. Currently she's working on winning back the House. She loves trainings, her tripawd dog Rooney, and karaoke.

Alissa Stollwerk Director, YouGov Blue, YouGov

Alissa Stollwerk, PhD, is Director of YouGov Blue, where she helps Democrats and progressives leverage innovations in polling and online survey research to elect candidates up and down the ballot. Alissa has over a decade of experience in Democratic politics and is a veteran of the Analyst Institute and Hillary for America. She received her PhD in political science from Columbia University. When not asking her favorite survey questions online, she can be found chasing after her two daughters (ages 9 months and 3 years old) and teaching them all about smashing the patriarchy.

Cara Feldkamp Deputy Director of Data and Analytics, Public Engagement Unit (NYC Government)

Cara Feldkamp currently serves as the Deputy Director of Data and Analytics at the NYC Mayor's Public Engagement Unit. In her current role, she utilizes data-driven strategies to help shape a series of vital homelessness prevention and outreach programs aimed at helping New Yorkers in need access City services. Cara started her career as a field organizer on Barack Obama's 2012 campaign in her home state of Colorado. Soon after, Cara moved into the data and analytics field and went on to work in political data, consulting, and now government. Cara has a BA in International Political Economy from Colorado College and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Felicity Pereyra Director of Data, Democratic National Committee

Felicity Pereyra is a native of Houston, TX and has spent the last 10 years working on electoral campaigns up and down the ballot. She got her start as a field organizer for a local county Democratic Party, and spent years as an organizer before moving into electoral analytics while on the 2012 Obama campaign in Colorado. Most recently, she was an Analytics Lead on the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential election where she oversaw the states analytics programs for Florida, North Carolina, Nevada and Colorado.

Anna Gilbert Founder // Data & Analytics Consultant, Marion Street Strategies

Anna Gilbert is an independent data and analytics consultant. Prior to going out on her own, Anna built and lead a data team for Slate Magazine. She has worked on the data teams for Civis Analytics and Enroll America. Her political career started in Portland, Oregon with local campaigns, followed by working for President Obama's reelection campaign in Ohio. Anna holds an MBA from the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and BA from Grinnell College. She hails from Charlotte, NC and currently lives in Washington, DC. She has visited all 50 states and loves to travel to new places.

Taylor Brooks Analyst, Analyst Institute

Taylor is currently an Analyst at Analyst Institute where she works to create and disseminate evidence-based best practices for voter engagement and issue advocacy, often through experiments. Prior to joining Analyst Institute, Taylor attended Cornell University where she earned a BS in Policy Analysis & Management and a minor in Inequality Studies. Taylor has engaged with the political world as a finance intern on the Nate Shinagawa congressional campaign and as a United States House of Representatives Page. When she is not working, Taylor enjoys creating playlists, crabbing, and watching reruns of House Hunters.

Kass DeVorsey Founder, Minerva Insights

Kassia DeVorsey is the CEO and founder of Minerva Insights, a boutique analytics consulting firm based in New York and Washington. She has held leading roles in data and analytics at The Messina Group, BlueLabs, the Democratic National Committee, and President Obama’s 2012 campaign. Kass devotes her spare time to travel, champagne, and accumulating parking tickets.

Jess Garson Adjunct Professor, New York University

Jessica Garson is a Adjunct Professor at NYU. She’s also the organizer of the Tech Lady Hackathon, and previously the organizer of Hack && Tell DC. She is a frequent teacher at DC's Hear Me Code, beginner friendly classes for women by women and has run programming classes at DC area public libraries. Jessica also runs a self-published programming magazine called What's my Function. In 2015, she was named by DC FemTech as one of the most powerful Women in Tech. In 2017, one of her projects nominateher.org got named best web/mobile product of the year by technical.ly magazine. Previously she’s worked at ISL, Burson-Marstellar, The National Education Association, ISSI Data, and Salsa Labs. Before working in technology, Jessica worked on numerous campaigns throughout the country and got her degree in Political Science at the University of Hartford.

Cristina Sinclaire Senior Vice President, Clarity Campaign Labs

Cristina Sinclaire recently joined Clarity Campaign Labs bringing high-quality analytics to campaigns and organizations of all sizes. Previously she served as Director of Client Services at Catalist, the progressive movement's data utility. Prior to that she researched voting laws and built civic data tools at the New Organizing Institute. She has managed electoral campaigns and organized communities from California to South Africa. She sits on the Boards of National Public Radio, the Center for Technology and Civic Life, the Alliance for CHANGE, and the Earthward Bound Foundation. In her spare time Cristina travels, plays cribbage, dances and chases her next favorite meal.