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.

Jenna Sherman

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.

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.

Rosa Valderrama

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.

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

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.

Elisa Batista

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.