Archives: The Team

Kimberly Williams

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.

Bridget Todd

Bridget is the Communications Director at UltraViolet. She got her start teaching courses on writing and social change at Howard University. Since then, she’s trained human rights activists in Australia, coordinated digital strategy for organizations like Planned Parenthood, the Women’s March, and MSNBC, and ran a training program for political operatives that the Washington Post called the Democratic Party’s “Hogwarts for digital wizardry.”

Bridget Todd is the creator and host of iHeartRadio’s critically acclaimed podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet. Formerly, she cohosted iHeartMedia’s Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast bringing feminist issues to 2 million ears a month and hosted a global salon with AFROPUNK where she talked to high-profile women like Ava Duvernay and #MeToo creator Tarana Burke.

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.

Maria Tchijov

Maria is the VP of Advocacy and Membership at UltraViolet, responsible for overseeing the campaigning work of the organization as well as member fundraising and engagement. She comes to UltraViolet with more than a decade of experience at the intersection of advocacy and digital organizing, most recently at MoveOn where she led the user-generated petition platform, engaging with millions of people around the country on issues that they care about. During her tenure at MoveOn, Maria also built out an organizational focus on member growth and engagement, and developed other innovative member engagement and fundraising programs. Prior to her work at MoveOn, Maria worked in both the nonprofit and startup worlds, including as one of the founding employees at Change.org. Maria has recently settled back in the Midwest with her partner, twin daughters, and overly protective black lab. When not working, she enjoys cooking, reading, and rock climbing.

Sonja Spoo

Sonja Spoo is the Director of Reproductive Rights Campaigns at UltraViolet. She works to conceive of and launch rapid response campaigns for UltraViolet. Prior to joining UV, Sonja organized activists, students and lawmakers from around the country to fight for reproductive rights from a faith-based understanding with Catholics for Choice. Sonja began her journey in grassroots organizing nine years ago in Philadelphia and her advocacy focuses on the intersections between faith, gender and race. Sonja is a graduate of Swarthmore College where she majored in Political Science. She currently lives in Washington D.C. where you will find her consuming large amounts of coffee and spending time cuddling as many dogs as possible.

KaeLyn Rich

KaeLyn is the Vice President of Organizational Advancement and leads the operations, human resources, finance, and development teams at UltraViolet. 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 cut her teeth in progressive campaigns at a Planned Parenthood affiliate in upstate NY.

KaeLyn is also a public speaker on intersectionality, LGBTQ+ issues, and sexuality; a contributing writer for Autostraddle; 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.

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.

Katie

Katie has run digital campaigns on a wide variety of issues from fighting the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines to restricting access to guns and limiting pesticides to fighting for LGBTQ rights and holding corporations accountable. She began this work as a volunteer with Obama for America. She was part of the digital team for the Peoples Climate Marches and led Sierra Club’s rapid response and campaigns in solidarity with Standing Rock. Her rapid response call campaign to the Trump Whitehouse went, viral, generating 36,000 calls in 24 hours. Katie previously worked in digital marketing in the music industry. Outside work, she enjoys playing with her dog, seeing live music, reading, and swimming.

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.

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.