About Us

Elisa Batista is the Content Director and a Campaign Director with UltraViolet. She conceives and implements campaigns to end violence against women, increase economic security for women and families, and ensure that all women have access to full and affordable healthcare services.

Prior to her position at UltraViolet, she was a Campaign Director for MomsRising.org, a million-volunteer grassroots organization advocating for policies related to family economic security and child health and well-being. She helped spearhead the organization’s immigration campaign and launch MamásConPoder.org, a community of civically engaged Spanish-speaking and bilingual mothers. She is also a bilingual journalist and award-winning digital influencer. She is the co-founder of the popular parenting community, MotherTalkers, which was named a “favorite mom blog” by Ms. Magazine, and recognized with an award by Latinos in Tech Innovation and Social Media (LATISM). In addition, her writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, Daily Kos, FOX News, La Opinión, and Wired News. When she is not at work, Batista is going to concerts with friends and training for races. She is an avid runner and cyclist who lives with her family in California.

KaeLyn (she/her) is the Vice President of Organizational Advancement and oversees internal operations and strategic organizational growth at UltraViolet, where she leads the operations, human resources, and finance teams.

She is a lifelong community activist who cut her teeth stuffing folders for her parents’ union meetings around the dining room table. She comes to UltraViolet with over a decade of nonprofit leadership experience. Prior to joining UltraViolet, KaeLyn was the Executive Director of Bitch Media, best known for the iconic Bitch magazine. She spent eight years in advocacy and statewide leadership at the ACLU of NY and learned progressive campaigning at a Planned Parenthood affiliate in upstate NY.

KaeLyn is also a public speaker and writer; a nonprofit consultant; an occasional gender studies professor; and a direct action organizer. Her debut young adult book, Girls Resist!: A Guide to Activism, Leadership, and Starting a Revolution came out in 2018. She is the president and a founding board member of Connect and Breathe, an all-volunteer, taboo-breaking after-abortion talkline. KaeLyn is a queer bisexual Korean-American transracial adoptee, a devotee of savory comfort foods, and a big fan of the serial comma. She lives in New York with her spouse, child, and a menagerie of lovely animals.

Kathy is the Managing Director of Growth and Member Experience at Ultraviolet. Prior to joining the team, she was Digital Strategies Director at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. While at the Task Force, Kathy grew and strengthened the organization’s online presence around issues including marriage equality, workplace discrimination, and access to healthcare. Kathy helped revolutionize online participation with the organization’s largest annual event, the National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change by introducing livestreaming, developing a conference mobile app and facilitating more robust conversations on social media. Kathy previously managed online communications for Alliance for Justice, where she worked to engage progressives in the fight for a fair judiciary. She currently lives in Southern California where she loves to take advantage of the mountain biking, rock climbing, and hiking opportunities.

Lindsay (she/they) is the Managing Director of People and Organizational Development at UltraViolet, where her focus is on organizational culture, staff and leadership support, training, and advisement, people-centered human resources, and sustainable and equitable internal operations. She believes living organizational values through internal practices is critical to serving liberatory movements, and is passionate about ensuring back-end practices support UV’s team.

Prior to joining UltraViolet Lindsay spent over eight years in the alternative investment industry. She has long been involved in Chicago’s reproductive justice community as a clinic escort and former chair of Chicago Abortion Fund, and in the arts community as a resident artist, instructor, and freelancer. Outside of work Lindsay enjoys adding to her record collection, thrifting, snuggling everyone’s pets, and looking at the details of things.

Erica Scott-Adjei (she/her) works to create positive social impact through philanthropy. She brings over 15 years experience leading development at a variety of organizations advancing gender, reproductive, and migrant justice, economic equity, and civil rights. She also has served in finance and communications roles for municipal, state, and Congressional campaigns.

Based in Boston, Erica is a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy and alumna of Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill. She was a Community Fellow at the Institute for Nonprofit Practice at Boston University. Her leadership includes serving on the Boards of NARAL Pro-Choice MA, the Bristol County, MA Commission on the Status of Women, the MA Commission on LGBTQ Youth, First Generation Harvard Alumni, and several Indigenous, Latinx, social justice, and choral organizations. She is bilingual in English and Spanish and speaks conversational Portuguese and Italian.

Rosa (she/ella/lei) is a Campaign Director at UltraViolet who believes that we must fight to root out sexism and racism in every aspect of society, starting with ourselves. Before joining UltraViolet, Rosa led the communications departments at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP) and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice. She is a Board Member at the Broward Women’s Emergency Fund (BWEF) and has many years of experience leading advocacy campaigns, working with the press and on digital media, and collaborating with progressive organizations to advance gender justice, racial justice, economic justice, and equitable access to abortion. The oldest of four sisters born in Lima, Peru, Rosa grew up in the vibrant immigrant community of Miami. She lives in Fort Lauderdale with her partner and enjoys going to the beach, biking, pilates, kickboxing, live music, and learning Italian.

Melody has over 13 years of progressive experience in finance and accounting, including over 6 years in the non-profit sector. She has worked as an auditor in public accounting and has worked on the accounting teams of Planned Parenthood of Illinois and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. She has successfully led initiatives to develop financial processes and improve financial reporting to end users. Melody is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and is a CPA. In her free time, she enjoys seeking out great restaurants, biking, crafting, and travel, with a goal of visiting all the national parks someday.

Jenna (she/her) is a Campaign Director at UltraViolet, with a focus on tech and gender and gender and the media. As a lifelong gender justice activist, she’s committed to securing improved healthcare, safety, and justice for all people with marginalized gender identities.

Her commitment to this work stems from witnessing and experiencing injustices in her family and community growing up queer, low-income, and Jewish in Texas and Alabama. Today, Jenna has her MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Social and Behavioral Sciences, with a concentration in Maternal and Child Health. Her work on gendered health misinformation  has been featured in publications including Scientific American, The Washington Post, MIT Technology Review, and PBS.

Jenna is a rape crisis counselor, a birth doula, a never use alone volunteer operator, an indoor gardening novice, a singer, and a lover of all cats — especially her own. She newly lives in Southern California where she wakes up each day thankful for the palm trees and mountains.

Nicole is a first-generation immigrant from the Philippines and a long-time reproductive and migrant justice activist.

Her nearly fifteen years of experience as a campaign strategist includes senior leadership roles at RAICES, ACLU, and CREDO Action, where she led strategic communications and advocacy teams to advance racial justice, immigrant rights, and corporate accountability campaigns.

Nicole lives in Southern California and enjoys hiking with her pup, taking care of her 20+ indoor plants, and going to flea markets on the weekend.

Shaunna Thomas is co-founder and Executive Director of UltraViolet. Shaunna has had a fifteen year career in progressive organizing, building progressive infrastructure projects and winning critical policy fights at the national level. Shaunna has appeared numerous times on network and cable TV including NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and CNBC as a political commentator. Before founding UltraViolet, Shaunna was the Executive Director of the P Street Project, a 501c4 nonprofit dedicated to organizing progressive members of Congress and connecting federal legislative strategy with online grassroots mobilization efforts. Prior to that, Shaunna was the COO of Progressive Congress, a nonprofit supporting the policy and organizing work of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Shaunna was introduced to organizing and advocacy through the 2004 presidential election, which inspired the next five years of her work at Young People For, a Project of People For the American Way Foundation dedicated to identifying, engaging and empowering the next generation of progressive leaders. Shaunna–originally from Los Angeles–is a resident of Washington, D.C.

Shaunna Thomas is co-founder and Executive Director of UltraViolet. Shaunna has had a fifteen year career in progressive organizing, building progressive infrastructure projects and winning critical policy fights at the national level. Shaunna has appeared numerous times on network and cable TV including NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and CNBC as a political commentator. Before founding UltraViolet, Shaunna was the Executive Director of the P Street Project, a 501c4 nonprofit dedicated to organizing progressive members of Congress and connecting federal legislative strategy with online grassroots mobilization efforts. Prior to that, Shaunna was the COO of Progressive Congress, a nonprofit supporting the policy and organizing work of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Shaunna was introduced to organizing and advocacy through the 2004 presidential election, which inspired the next five years of her work at Young People For, a Project of People For the American Way Foundation dedicated to identifying, engaging and empowering the next generation of progressive leaders. Shaunna–originally from Los Angeles–is a resident of Washington, D.C. You can find Shaunna on Twitter @SLThomas.

Nita Chaudhary is a co-founder of UltraViolet. Before founding UltraViolet, Nita was the National Campaigns and Organizing Director at MoveOn.org Political Action. As a part of that role she oversaw and managed MoveOn’s national campaigns department, including the organization’s work on health care reform, the economy and Social Security, and she supervised MoveOn’s team of Campaign Directors. During her tenure at MoveOn, Nita oversaw the fundraising program for the 2008 election, and led some of the organization’s largest campaigns including MoveOn’s work to end the Iraq war, protect constitutional liberties, and address climate change. Prior to that she was the Democratic National Committee’s first Director of Online during the 2004 cycle. She started her career at People for the American Way where she held several positions, including Media Research Analyst, Web Editor, and Online Organizer. Nita’s a native New Yorker who loves the Yankees, the Knicks and cooking Indian food.

Charlene Carruthers is a strategist, author and a leading organizer in today’s Black liberation movement.  As the founding national director of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100), she has worked alongside hundreds of young Black activists to build a national base of activist member-led organizations of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. 

Charlene is a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow and founder of the Chicago Center for Leadership and Transformation, a locally rooted and nationally connected learning community for political education, grassroots organizing, language and strategic communications capacity building. Find her online at www.charlenecarruthers.com.

Arisha Michelle Hatch serves as the Managing Director of Campaigns at ColorOfChange.org and leads the organization’s civic engagement, voting rights, criminal justice, corporate accountability and media work. Prior to joining Color Of Change in 2012, Arisha left behind a legal career to organize for the Obama Campaign in 2008, and later served as National Organizing Director of the Courage Campaign. She earned degrees in Economics, Creative Writing and Feminist Studies from Stanford and her juris doctorate from Santa Clara University.

Karen Finney is an independent consultant working with political and corporate clients in the United States and globally on message development, crisis communications, branding, public affairs and strategy. She is currently a Senior Advisor to Abrams for Governor, the Democratic National Committee and AL Media. Finney served as Senior Advisor for Communications and Political Outreach and Senior Spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

From her experience working in media, national politics, political and communications strategy in both the public and private sectors, Finney brings a unique perspective to her work. She was a political analyst and hosted her own show on MSNBC, “Disrupt with Karen Finney,”.  Her experience includes work on four presidential campaigns, the Clinton Administration, and she was the Democratic National Committee’s first African American spokeswoman, helping to lead the DNC’s communications strategy for the “50 State Strategy,” successful 2006 Congressional elections and 2008 presidential campaign.  A regular commentator on national television, Finney serves on the boards of NARAL pro-choice America, Power Rising and the Civic Engagement Fund.

Maureen is a social scientist with 30 years of professional experience as an Integrative Psychotherapist, Executive Coach, Organizational Consultant, Adjunct Faculty, and Group Facilitator. In addition, she has served as host of the Edge Learning Well Talk Radio Show and has taught courses at the Integrative Health Education Center and the Institute for Health & Healing.

Currently, Maureen serves on the Advisory Council of The Representation Project and is Associate Producer of the documentary film, The Mask You Live In, which explores how society is failing our boys. She serves on the Board of Visitors for the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and on the Boards of the Penny George Institute Foundation and The Search Institute, as well as being a Trustee of The Eagle & the Hawk Foundation.

Alicia Jay is a certified coach and multifaceted consultant who has spent the last 15 years driving change on behalf of social justice activists and organizations, with a focus on helping women and young people to reach their highest levels of leadership and impact. As a part of the team who launched The League, a new cultural engagement collective, Alicia was most recently working with some of the progressive movement’s leading activists to integrate creative communications, cultural organizing, and narrative shift strategies into their work.

Alicia has supported individuals and organizations to better align their behavior with their values to achieve greater impact. She has done this by mobilizing millions of women through intersectional campaigns and events like Make It Work, the We Won’t Wait coalition, and the United State of Women Summit; building the capacity of grassroots organizations through grantmaking at the Atlantic Philanthropies; and helping to train the current and next generation of social change leaders through Young People For, the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, and as a coach working with hundreds of emerging leaders.

Wendy C. Wolf, Ph.D. is a social policy analyst and philanthropist who organizes women and the men in their lives in support of progressive social change. She is a member of the Women Donors Network, has spearheaded their work on reproductive health and justice,  and their work on gender justice and safety in the work force. She has been the Treasurer of that board and was a board member for six years.

She was also on the board of Living Beyond Breast Cancer for over ten years and served as their Treasurer and head of programs. She has been on the board of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth as well as Protect our Defenders.

She is an adolescent, children’s, and reproductive rights advocate, and a social policy analyst and evaluator. She founded the Center for Assessment and Policy Development (CAPD), which she led from 1987 to 1999. Prior to founding CAPD, she was the Director of Research at Public/Private Ventures for seven years. She has taught at the University of Arizona. She received a Ph.D. in Demography and Sociology from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. from Brown University.