Speakers

Since becoming California’s 34th Attorney General, Bonta has led California DOJ to take on some of the biggest challenges of our time — the lawlessness of the second Trump Administration, attacks on healthcare, deception peddled by Big Oil, and the state’s housing crisis. As California’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer, crime and public safety are Bonta’s top priorities, which is why he is at the helm of California DOJ’s work to crack down on fentanyl, dismantle organized retail crime schemes, remove illicit firearms from communities, fight for commonsense gun reforms, combat human trafficking, and address hate crimes. As the People’s Attorney, Bonta sees seeking accountability from those who abuse their power and take advantage of hardworking people as a critical component of the job. From protecting the rights of workers, tenants, and homeowners to taking on greedy corporate giants, wage theft, price gougers, and hidden fees, Bonta is standing up for consumers and making life more affordable for all Californians.

Before serving as Attorney General, Bonta spent more than eight years serving in the State Assembly, where he authored nation-leading legislation to make our communities safer and more affordable, and to ensure government institutions work for all of the people they serve. Some of his proudest achievements as a legislator include creating the strongest tenant protection law in the nation, ending surprise medical bills, strengthening voting rights, banning for-profit private prisons, and protecting immigrants and workers.

Bonta was sworn in on April 23, 2021, becoming the first person of Filipino descent to serve as California Attorney General. Born in Quezon City, Philippines, Bonta immigrated to California with his family as an infant. He is the son of a proud native Filipina mother and a father born and raised in California. Bonta grew up and attended public school in California before working his way through Yale University and earning his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.

Alysia Bell is President of UNITE-LA. In 15 years with the organization, she has led its national work in partnership with the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE), which has raised over $15 million, sub-granting nearly $1 million to chambers leading promising practices in higher education attainment; graduated over 200 business organization leaders from the Fellowship for Economic Mobility; and engaged more than 600 chamber professionals in its Education and Talent Development Division.

She serves on several local and regional boards, is a member of the California Workforce Development Board and is on the board of California Forward.

Before joining UNITE-LA, Bell served as an executive for the Greater-Irving Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce; held positions with LAUSD’s Personnel Selection Branch and Southern California Edison’s Performance Assessment Services Division; and served as an Adjunct Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Pepperdine University.

Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan has represented California’s 16th Assembly District since 2018, covering communities across the East Bay, including Orinda, Walnut Creek, Livermore, and Pleasanton.

Rebecca built her career as an environmental attorney, leading corporate compliance investigations and pro bono programs focused on civil rights, immigration, and domestic violence. She also taught appellate law at Santa Clara and Golden Gate Universities.

In the Assembly, she founded the Select Committee on Reproductive Health and has championed legislation on environmental protection, reproductive rights, mental health, and civil liberties. She now chairs the Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection, guiding California’s approach to AI regulation.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University Law Center, Rebecca lives in Orinda with her husband, Darren, and their three children.

Julián Castro serves as Chief Executive Officer of the Latino Community Foundation, the nation’s largest Latino-serving foundation. Julián’s deep commitment to the future of this nation is woven into his DNA. 

Raised by his mother, Rosie Castro, a civil rights and Chicana activist, and his grandmother, Victoria Castro, on the westside of San Antonio, Texas, Julian grew up with a profound understanding of what it meant to love and serve community. Inspired by a legacy of leaders working to safeguard our democracy and strengthen community, Julian has dedicated his life to public service.

Julián was elected to the San Antonio City Council in 2001 at age 26, then was elected Mayor of San Antonio in 2009. In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Julián U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, where he served until the end of the Obama administration, and in 2020, Julián ran for the Democratic nomination for President. Julián earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University and a law degree from Harvard Law School.

Neil Chase is the Chief Executive Officer of CalMatters. He was formerly Executive Editor at The Mercury News and the East Bay Times and has worked as a journalist at the San Francisco Examiner, Arizona Republic, CBS MarketWatch and The New York Times.

Lanhee J. Chen, PhD, is the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and cochair of its Healthcare Policy Working Group, At Stanford University, he is also director of Domestic Policy Studies, lecturer in the Public Policy Program, and an affiliated faculty member of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies.
In addition to his academic appointments, Chen is a partner at the Brunswick Group, a global business advisory firm. He is also a presidentially nominated and Senate-confirmed member of the Amtrak Board of Directors and a member and former chair of the Board of Directors at El Camino Health, an integrated health system in Northern California.
Chen’s writings have appeared in a variety of outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and he is a contributing writer to the Opinion page at the Los Angeles Times. He is also an NBC News contributor and appears frequently on the network’s flagship public affairs program, Meet the Press.

Ben Christopher covers housing policy for CalMatters. Ben has profiled the people who fell through the cracks of California’s rickety COVID rent relief program, demystified the perennial debate between state regulators and local governments opposed to new housing, covered innovative ideas from cities on how to tackle their local housing shortages and explained how complicated legislative proposals about zoning, bonds and corporate ownership of single-family homes affect everyday Californians. 

His favorite reporting assignment so far: Touring the various two- and three-story structures that have sprouted up across San Diego under the regulatory guise of “accessory dwelling units” thanks to that city’s one-of-a-kind program. Prior to taking over the housing beat in the spring of 2023, Ben wrote about elections and politics for CalMatters, covering four election cycles, including the 2021 gubernatorial recall campaign. He has been known to craft the occasional politics-themed crossword puzzle. 

Ben has a past life as an aspiring beancounter: He has worked as a summer associate at the Congressional Budget Office and has a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in Oakland where he enjoys riding his bike, baking (and then eating) pies and working on his repertoire of dad jokes.

George Conway is running for election in New York's 12th Congressional District, which covers much of Manhattan. He was a partner for 24 years at the New York law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where he litigated high-profile cases involving securities, antitrust, and other matters, including one case he won before the U.S. Supreme Court.
He switched from Republican to independent during the first Trump Administration and most recently joined the Democratic Party. In 2019, he co-founded The Lincoln Project, the conservative political action committee that opposed President Trump’s reelection.  He's a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. 

Adam Echelman covers higher education for CalMatters, focusing on California’s numerous job training programs and its 116 community colleges. He works in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on strengthening higher education coverage in local communities.

In his reporting, students drive every story. He reported that the state declined to help millions of adults access financial aid, even after education advocates presented the governor’s office with a possible solution. Soon after his story came out, the governor’s office changed its policy. In another investigation, he found that California was subsidizing for-profit colleges whose graduates often landed in low-wage jobs. Some of these for-profit schools were also under state investigation. He was an Education Writers Association fellow, which culminated in a two-part series about a novel education technique, known as competency-based education. 

Before joining CalMatters, he worked as an equity reporter at the Modesto Bee, where his coverage of environmental injustice received a California News Publishers Association award.

Adam has extensive experience as an education leader. For three years, he served as the executive director of Libraries Without Borders, a nonprofit organization that helps expand access to information. Under his tenure, he built partnerships with federal and state education departments, as well as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and private groups including the Knight, Ford and Open Society foundations. 

He’s a graduate of Yale University and is fluent in Spanish and French.

Born and raised in Miami, Cesar serves as Head of US State & Local Government Relations at Anthropic. Previous to Anthropic, Cesar served as the Head of US State Government Relations at FanDuel, Director of US Public Affairs at Pacaso, and a Partner at Converge. His client list at Converge included notable tech companies like Zillow, REEF, Nuro, Revel, EA, Lilium, Vivid Seats, etc.

Prior to joining Converge, Cesar managed Uber’s government affairs work before state and local government in Florida for three years and was instrumental in the passage of statewide ridesharing regulations. His advocacy at Uber also extended to autonomous vehicle legislation, negotiating a multi-million dollar settlement with Miami-Dade County, and leading strategy for contract negotiations with a half-dozen Florida airports. Shortly after, Cesar transitioned to a role on Uber’s Public Policy team for Central America and the Caribbean, where he represented the company’s interest before the national governments of seven countries.

Kristen Go is the Editor in Chief of CalMatters. She previously worked as the executive editor and vice president of news at USA TODAY, managing editor of digital at the San Francisco Chronicle and has worked at The Arizona Republic and The Denver Post. She grew up in California’s central valley and lives in the Bay Area. She is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Reno.

Elizabeth González is chief program & strategy officer of College Futures Foundation. In this role she leads the development and implementation of the foundation’s strategy in service of the foundation’s vision and mission. She is a long-time philanthropy professional working for national, state, and regional foundations in support of public-sector systems change strategies and the advancement of equitable intergenerational social-economic mobility.

Previously, she was a portfolio director at The James Irvine Foundation, where she oversaw the education and workforce portfolios and teams—the Better Careers initiative, postsecondary success grantmaking, and Linked Learning, Irvine’s signature initiative to integrate academic and career-technical education for better student outcomes in high schools throughout California. Prior to her work at the Irvine Foundation, she was a postsecondary success program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation overseeing a national portfolio of municipal partnerships for college success. She earned a BA from Columbia University, and a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a focus on poverty, labor market inequality, and social policy. She currently serves as a member of the KQED board, Grantmakers for Education board, USC’s Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy advisory board, Center for Effective Philanthropy’s advisory board, and the Public Policy Institute of California’s Statewide Leadership Council.

Lorena Gonzalez has dedicated her career to expanding workers’ rights through organizing, politics, and legislation. From transforming the San Diego region as head of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, to passing landmark labor laws in the State Assembly, to her historic leadership of the California Federation of Labor Unions, Lorena has relentlessly championed the cause of the working class. 

Her efforts have achieved groundbreaking advances for millions of working Californians—including paid sick leave for every employee in the state, overtime pay for farmworkers, and the strongest laws in the nation against worker misclassification and wage theft. These historic victories established California at the forefront of labor policy and set a national agenda on workers’ rights. As both a legislator and labor leader, she has been a leader in tackling emerging technology in the workplace, including creating protections against dangerous warehouse production quotas at Amazon and leading the fight to establish guardrails for the use of AI. She currently serves as the National Co-Chair of AFL-CIO State Federation AI Task Force. 

Lorena was raised by a single mom who worked as a nurse and a father who immigrated from Mexico to work in the strawberry fields of San Diego County. Her first summer job was working at the Community Services arm of the Labor Council, providing support to striking workers. She is a graduate of Stanford University, and earned a master’s degree from Georgetown University and a law degree from UCLA. 

In 2022, Lorena became the first woman and first person of color to be elected as President of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO. Under her leadership, the Federation has built a stronger, more accessible Labor Movement through prioritizing all forms of organizing and building solidarity across unions. She has revived the Member to Member political program to build engagement and power for all Union families. Lorena consistently and unapologetically ensures that the voices, needs, and rights of all workers remain at the forefront of public discourse in California.

Geoff Green is the CEO of CalNonprofits, an alliance of thousands of nonprofits advancing policy advocacy, education, and research to build a more powerful and politically engaged nonprofit sector in California.

Prior to CalNonprofits, Geoff served as CEO of California’s largest community college foundation, was a leader in the College Promise movement, and helped secure a record $100M gift to two dozen community colleges. Before that he served as Executive Director of an activist-led community foundation which was a resource, convener, and funder for a wide range of innovative grassroots organizations working on issues including racial equity, environmental health, living wages, civil rights, and housing.

His previous work includes public affairs radio programming, campaign field organizing, and as a nonprofit trainer and facilitator. As a life-long advocate for public service, Geoff has served on dozens of nonprofit boards and committees and been both elected and appointed to public office.

Lee Herrick is the California Poet Laureate. He is the author of four books of poems: In Praise of Late Wonder: New and Selected Poems (Gunpowder Press, September 2024); Scar and Flower, finalist for the 2020 Northern California Book Award; Gardening Secrets of the Dead; and This Many Miles from Desire.

He is co-editor of The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit (Orison Books 2020) and Afterlives: An AGNI Portfolio of  Asian Adoptee Diaspora Writing.

 Herrick serves on the advisory board of Terrain.org and Sixteen Rivers Press. He co-founded LitHop in Fresno.  He has taught in Qingdao, China; at Kundiman in New York City, and for twelve years in the low-residency MFA program at the University of Nevada, Reno.

He was born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted as an infant. He lives with his family in Fresno, California and served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017. He teaches at Fresno City College. He is the 10th California Poet Laureate, and the first Asian American to serve in the role. In April 2025, he became the first California Poet Laureate to be officially reappointed to a second two-year term.

Don Howard is president and CEO of The James Irvine Foundation, leading the Foundation to focus on one goal: ensuring all low-income workers in California have the power to advance economically. He previously directed Irvine’s grantmaking as executive vice president. He serves on PPIC’s Statewide Leadership Council and Statewide Survey Advisory Committee, the California Policy Lab Advisory Board, and the Black Freedom Fund CEO Advisory Group. As a partner at the Bridgespan Group, he led the San Francisco office and advised nonprofits and foundations on strategy. He advised corporations in his roles at Booz Allen Hamilton and the Scient Corporation. He has been an activist around HIV issues and a volunteer (USAID) adviser for small businesses in Poland, and has written and spoken on philanthropic strategy, nonprofit management, social entrepreneurship, and the impact of AI deployment on low-income workers. He earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and an MBA from Stanford University.

Kristen Hwang is a health reporter for CalMatters covering health care access, abortion and reproductive health, workforce issues, drug costs and emerging public health matters. Her series on soaring rates of maternal and congenital syphilis won a first-place award from the Association of Health Care Journalists. Her recent work has also been recognized by the Sacramento Press Club and Asian American Journalism Association. 

Prior to joining CalMatters, Kristen earned a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and a master of public health degree from Berkeley’s School of Public Health. Her graduate student research focused on water quality in the Central Valley and uncovered chemicals related to fracking in drinking water wells. During the pandemic, she joined a team of graduate student journalists contributing to the New York Times COVID-19 data tracker and West Coast coverage. While at Berkeley, Kristen also directed and produced “When They’re Gone,” a short documentary on migratory beekeepers and sustainable agriculture. “When They’re Gone” won the 2021 Student Academy Award and has screened at festivals around the world. 

Kristen is based in the Sacramento area. She has worked as a reporter in Washington, D.C., Arizona, Alabama and California. She cut her teeth as a beat reporter at The Desert Sun in Palm Springs covering education and criminal justice. There she also worked with a team to investigate the impact of Proposition 47, a California criminal justice sentencing reform ballot measure. Kristen directed a documentary for the Prop. 47 project that won an Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association.

Professor Amy E. Lerman is the Michelle Schwartz Chair and Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research is focused on issues of equity, public opinion, and political behavior, especially as they relate to public safety and social inequality in America. Amy’s scholarship can be found in a wide variety of academic journals and has been featured in numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, CNN, and NPR. She consults widely on issues related to civic engagement and trust in government, prison reform, access to higher education, and law enforcement mental health.

In addition to her research, Amy previously served as a speechwriter and communications consultant for national nonprofits and members of the United States Congress, a community organizer in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and an adjunct faculty member of the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison. In 2023, Amy was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Mike Madrid is a nationally recognized political consultant with an expertise on Latino voting trends and voter behavior. Madrid has been a pioneer in Latino communications and outreach strategies in state, local, and national political campaigns. A graduate of Georgetown University, he served as the press secretary for the California Assembly Republican leader, as the political director for the California Republican Party, and as senior adviser to both Democrats and Republicans.

In 2020, Madrid co-founded the Lincoln Project, a Republican anti-Trump organization that became one of the most successful Political Action Committees in US history. Madrid was a co-director of the Los Angeles / USC Times Poll and in 2013, was appointed to the Board of Directors of the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC). Mike was an adjunct lecturer on Race, Class and Partisanship at the University of Southern California and awarded the UnidosUS Capital Award in 2023 by the oldest Latino Civil Rights organization in the country. He continues his work against the rise of global authoritarianism through his political work domestically and internationally.

Madrid is the author of “The Latino Century”, published by Simon and Schuster released in Spring 2024. He is also co-host of the Latino Vote Podcast.

Kevin McCarty was elected as the 57th Mayor of the City of Sacramento in November 2024.
From 2014 to 2024, McCarty served in the state legislature, representing the 6th Assembly District, which included the majority of the City of Sacramento.
McCarty served as Chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, working to combat some of the state’s most pressing public safety issues, including retail theft, gun violence, and drug abuse. In addition, McCarty served as the Chair of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance, overseeing historic increases in public education and expanding college access and affordability.
As an Assemblymember, McCarty authored over 90 measures that became law, including the Universal Preschool Act, the American River Parkway Conservancy Act, Independent Investigations in Police Shootings, HOPE California – Drug Treatment for Repeat Felons, Voting Rights for Formerly Incarcerated Individuals, and the High School Financial Literacy Act.
A lifelong Sacramentan, McCarty began his career as a Housing and Redevelopment Commissioner and then served on the Sacramento City Council for a decade. After receiving his high school diploma through adult education, he attended American River Community College and earned degrees from CSU Long Beach and CSU Sacramento.

Deirdre K. Mulligan is a Professor in the School of Information at UC Berkeley, a faculty Director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, a co-organizer of the Algorithmic Fairness & Opacity Working Group, an affiliated faculty on the Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity and a faculty advisor for its AI Policy Hub, and a faculty advisor to the CITRIS Policy Lab. Mulligan’s research explores legal and technical means of protecting values such as privacy, freedom of expression, and fairness in socio-technical systems.  

Mulligan served as Principal Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office (NAIIO), in the Biden-Harris Administration. At OSTP, Mulligan led the Technology Team that works to advance technology and data to benefit all Americans. Under her leadership the Tech Team leveraged technology and data to equitably deliver services, brought technology and data expertise to federal policy formation and implementation, and ensured that America led the world in values-driven technological research and innovation.  In November 2025 Mulligan was appointed to Governor Newsom's California Innovation Council.

Janet Napolitano is the Founder of the Institute for Security and Governance at UC Berkeley.  As a distinguished public servant, Napolitano served as the president of the University of California from 2013 to 2020, as the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013, as Governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009, as Attorney General of Arizona from 1998 to 2003, and as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona from 1993 to 1997. She earned her B.S. degree (summa cum laude in Political Science) in 1979 from Santa Clara University, where she was a Truman Scholar and the university’s first female valedictorian. She received her law degree in 1983 from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Napolitano currently serves as a professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. In March of 2019, Napolitano published How Safe Are We: Homeland Security Since 9/11.

Eloy Ortiz Oakley is president and CEO of the College Futures Foundation. Previously, he was chancellor of the California Community Colleges, from 2016 to 2022.
In this role, his work included the establishment of the California College Promise, the design and implementation of the Vision for Success, the elimination of standardized testing, the reform of remedial education, the adoption of a student-centered funding formula, and the design and launch of California’s first public fully online competency-based education college. He also served as senior advisor to US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, where he supported the development and communication of President Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda for Higher Education and the America’s College Promise proposal.
Previously having served on the PPIC Higher Education Center Advisory Council, he is a  current member of the PPIC Statewide Leadership Council and also serves on the boards of MDRC, Western Governors University, Alliant International University, the Board of Trustees for the University of California, Irvine, is a Regent Emeritus of the University of California Board of Regents, and commissioner for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Commission on Opportunities Beyond High School. He served in the US Army and earned both his MBA and bachelor’s degrees from the University of California, Irvine.

Nicole Ozer is a national leader in cutting-edge law and policy to advance rights, justice, and democracy and a legal expert on artificial intelligence, privacy and surveillance, and digital speech. Ozer’s innovative work in the courts, in communities, with companies, and policymakers passes landmark laws, wins civil rights cases, and builds power for national and international change.
Ozer spearheaded the passage of the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA) and California Reader Privacy Act. She designed groundbreaking surveillance reform strategies now used across the United States and created and led the national online privacy campaign, Demand Your dotRights. She helped craft the Santa Clara Principles on content moderation and develop and lead a global coalition successfully fighting face surveillance. She is frequently called upon for expert testimony, keynote presentations, and commentary in the press, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Univision, AP, BBC, NPR, PBS, Today Show, Good Morning America, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal.

Prior to becoming the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at UC Law San Francisco, Ozer was the founding Director of the Technology and Civil Liberties Program at the ACLU of Northern California and developed and led the ACLU’s statewide work in California to defend and promote rights in the modern digital world for more than 20 years. Ozer was also a Technology and Human Rights Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, a Fellow at the Stanford Digital Civil Society Lab, a Visiting Researcher at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, and an intellectual property attorney at Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco.

Before founding AQL Labs, Amin was a Senior Program Officer for the Postsecondary Success strategy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest global strategic philanthropy. Amin advanced the foundation’s understanding and investment in advanced technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cloud infrastructure, leveraging these innovations to help colleges improve student persistence, student supports, and advising. Before this, Amin led the design and implementation of a next-generation data warehouse at the University of California San Diego. He was the founding CEO of UNIZIN, a consortium of major research universities enrolling millions of students and advancing digital transformation and analytics. Amin is also the inaugural Chief Digital Officer at the University of Maryland Global Campus, and has extensive business strategy consulting experience with Accenture and KPMG. Amin is a prior edtech founder and CEO and has degrees from the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota. Amin is based in Austin.

Before founding AQL Labs, Rahim was Deputy Director of Innovation and Technology Enabled Solutions in the Postsecondary Success strategy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest global strategic philanthropy. During his 12-year tenure, he developed, managed, and directed strategy and investments across multiple portfolios, including digital learning, HBCU digital infrastructure, developmental education reform, and student advising and support systems. Rahim’s leadership and investments led to significant advances in innovation, R&D, and evidence-based reforms across higher education, including adaptive learning, scaling developmental education reforms, improving faculty professional development in evidence-based instructional practices like active learning, and building affordable, high-quality, national-scale postsecondary models. Prior to this, Rahim played a crucial role in scaling globally JSTOR, Aluka, and ITHAKA - three mission-driven organizations founded by the Mellon Foundation. Today, these digital platforms serve hundreds of millions of learners and thousands of educational institutions around the globe.

Rahim serves as Vice-Chair on the board of Directors of the Seattle Colleges Foundation, as an independent Director of the venture-backed startup Lumen Learning, Climb Together, and AI Transfer and Articulation Network (ATAIN). Rahim was a finalist judge for the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Future Finder competition in 2023 and is a finalist judge in the learning engineering Tools competition for postsecondary innovations. Rahim completed his postsecondary education at Boston University, the University of Chicago, the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, and the University of Cambridge. Rahim is based in Seattle.

Kara Segal is a Senior Research Manager at the California Policy Lab, where she manages CPL's labor and employment portfolio. Her work focuses on unemployment insurance, workforce development, economic mobility, and the changing nature of work.

Prior to joining CPL, Kara served as Chief of Staff at Inequality Media with Robert Reich, helping lead digital media and public education efforts focused on inequality and the American economy. She has also worked on public policy and economic equity initiatives at the Berkeley Institute for Young Americans and for the City of New York, where she managed programs supporting low-income and immigrant entrepreneurs, employee ownership, and fair labor practices. In addition to research, her background includes teaching, community organizing, and building partnerships across policy, government, and nonprofit sectors.

Kara holds an MPP from the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, a BA in Education Studies from Brown University, and is a former Coro Fellow in Public Affairs.

With extensive experience in human-centered design, systems-driven innovation, and‬‭ strategic planning, Binh has dedicated her career to reimagining education to meet the‬ ‭ evolving needs of students, employers, and communities. Binh brings a wealth of experience‬‭ in human-centered design, strategic planning, research and evaluation, and data-driven‬ decision-making to Calbright College. She served as the Director of Research, Data‬‭ Strategy, and Effectiveness, overseeing research and evaluation initiatives that supported‬‭ the college’s mission of reimagining higher education for working adults.‬

‭Prior to Calbright, she served as Senior Director of Design+Culture at Education Design Lab,‬‭ where she led large-scale innovation challenges to drive student success through‬‭ equity-centered design. Her portfolio of work included the Data Collaborative for a‬‭ Skilled-Based Economy and the Single Moms Success Design Challenge, funded by ECMC‬‭ among other large-scale national initiatives. She has also worked extensively in K-12 and‬‭ higher education, spearheading grant-writing, institutional master planning, and‬‭ workforce-aligned learning initiatives across California’s postsecondary institutions.‬‭

Binh holds an MBA from the W .P . Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. She‬‭ is passionate about the intersection of research, innovation, and policy to create more‬‭ equitable, accessible, and skills-focused education pathways and building collaborative,‬‭ technology-driven learning experiences for students.‬

In May of 2020, Gustavo Velasquez was appointed Director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development by Governor Gavin Newsom. In this leadership role, Velasquez leads California’s housing policy agenda and administers a wide range of programs that produce, preserve, and protect affordable housing and address homelessness in communities across the state. Velasquez was a senior director at the Urban Institute, a renowned national research organization working to provide data analysis and insights to policymakers and practitioners in ways both relevant and actionable. Velasquez served for nearly three years as assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He served on behalf of the president as the strategic lead of the fair housing and inclusive community agenda for the Obama administration. During his tenure, HUD achieved groundbreaking enforcement victories in fair lending and in major housing discrimination cases. Velasquez led efforts to promulgate the landmark Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, a key tool for cities, states, and other HUD funding recipients to reduce inequality and disparities in access to opportunity.

Dan Walters is one of the most decorated and widely syndicated columnists in California history, authoring a column four times a week that offers his view and analysis of the state’s political, economic, social and demographic trends. He began covering California politics in 1975, just as Jerry Brown began his first stint as governor, and began writing his column in 1981, first for the Sacramento Union for three years, then for The Sacramento Bee for 33 years and now for CalMatters since 2017. 

Dan is also the author or co-author of two books about California, “The New California: Facing the 21st Century” and “The Third House: Lobbyists, Money and Power in Sacramento.” He is a frequent radio show guest and occasionally appears on national television, commenting on California issues. 

Walters began his career in 1960 at the Humboldt Times in Eureka, California, a month before his 17th birthday, first as a newsroom aide and later as a police beat reporter. Having found his calling, he not only turned down a National Merit college scholarship but dropped out of high school, lacking one required class – ironically civics – to qualify for a diploma. Before moving to Sacramento to cover politics, he was the managing editor of three small daily newspapers.

Sisi is the Chief Impact Officer at CalMatters and was formerly Editor-in-Chief for The Markup. Before joining CalMatters and The Markup, she was co-executive director of OpenNews, where she envisioned and executed transformative initiatives for journalism. As part of her work, Sisi founded the DEI Coalition, a journalism community dedicated to sharing knowledge and taking concrete action in service of a more anti-racist, equitable, and just journalism industry. She was assistant managing editor at ProPublica from 2018 to 2020, where she oversaw three editorial teams focused on news apps, interactive storytelling, and visual investigations. She also managed large, interdisciplinary investigations across the newsroom, one of which won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2020. In 2021, IWFM awarded Sisi the Gwen Ifill Award, which recognizes an outstanding woman journalist of color whose work carries forward Gwen’s legacy, especially by serving as a role model and mentor for young journalists. In 2019, Sisi and her fellow Journalists of Color Slack admin team won the ONA Community Award, which recognizes a person or small team in online journalism that has made outsized contributions to creating tools or work environments that allow digital journalists to do their best work. Sisi also serves on the board of News Revenue Hub.

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks represents the East Bay in the California State Assembly, with a district spanning the communities of Oakland to Richmond, and includes the City of Berkeley.

Asm. Wicks was recently appointed Chair of the Appropriations Committee, after serving as Chair of the Assembly Housing Committee for two years prior. Her work focuses heavily on advancing solutions to solve California's housing and homelessness crisis, expanding our state’s social safety net, protecting kids in the digital world, and championing the rights of women and working families. 

A lifelong community organizer, Asm. Wicks previously served on both of President Barack Obama’s campaigns, and worked for him in the White House. She lives in Oakland with her husband, Peter, and daughters, Jojo and Elly.

Rick Wilson is a renowned political strategist, infamous ad-maker, writer, speaker, and political commentator. In December 2019 Rick co-founded the Lincoln Project, a political action committee whose goal is to hold accountable those who would violate their oaths to the Constitution and would place their loyalty to others before their loyalty to the American people and democracy. 

Rick has authored two New York Times bestsellers. Rick also writes for The Washington Post, Politico, Rolling Stone, The Hill, The Bulwark, and the London Spectator. A 30-year veteran of national Republican politics, Rick got his start in the 1988 presidential campaign of George Herbert Walker Bush.