Archives: The Team

Shaunna Thomas

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.

Nicole Regalado

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.

Melody Varjavand

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.

Luna Ly

Luna is the Social Media Manager for Ultraviolet and is passionate about revolutionizing the way we engage online, reclaiming digital autonomy, and considering the impact of digital communications. They are on a lifelong journey of learning and reflecting on how they show up in their work and with communities in the fight for justice and liberation while volunteering with the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) DC Chapter. Luna has a Masters of Public Health in Public Health Policy and Management from George Washington University, is an Alexander Hamilton Scholar, and avid reader. She enjoys being weird on social media, writing long sentences, and learning how to jam on the bass guitar. Luna uses any and all pronouns.

Lindsay Budzynski

Lindsay 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.

Kimberly Williams

KD Chavez

KD believes true leadership is based in reciprocity, healing, and intergenerational relationships with each other and the land. For more than a decade they have worked side-by-side with people to accomplish transformational and visionary change: from community members, executive directors, and programmatic staff to board members, organizers and major donors. Throughout this time they have carried the ancestral strength, resilience, and wisdom of their communities into every aspect of their work.

During their time at ACLU, KD was a member of the national Indigenous Justice Steering Committee working to further justice for indigenous peoples, and developed innovative campaigns and fundraising programs. Prior to their work at ACLU, KD worked in the nonprofit and consultant world spending nearly a decade at Planned Parenthood. Trained in group facilitation and conflict mediation, KD loves creating, spending time outside, enjoying art, and thinking about indigenous futures.

Kathy Plate

Kathy is the Growth and Member Experience Director 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.

KaeLyn Rich

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.

Jaya Savita Aiyer

Jaya (she/her) is a Campaign Director for UltraViolet where she serves as the lead convener of the Women’s Disinformation Defense Project, a table of over 30 racial and gender justice organizations committed to fighting disinformation and hate online that targets women in politics, particularly Black women and women of color, as well as LGBTQ+ people and other historically marginalized communities. She has also successfully led campaigns to combat abortion, COVID-19, and election disinformation on social media. Jaya comes to this work from her past experiences as an organizer, rooted in intersectional, anti-racist, and community-based advocacy. Prior to UltraViolet, Jaya was the Community Organizer at community development corporation where she advocated for affordable and equitable housing, health, transit, and policy. As the daughter of immigrants, Jaya is passionate about building solidarity and kinship across communities to achieve a more equitable society.