Young People For Team

Shaunna Thomas
Program Director

Shaunna, 27, joined YP4 in 2005 as an intern in order to build a program to effectively recruit, empower and retain community college students in the core fellowship. Since she became a full-time staff member in November 2005, Shaunna has proposed, researched, tested and evaluated all of YP4’s major new pilot initiatives. For the past year, Shaunna has been responsible for the internal management of YP4’s programs and staff. Before joining Young People For, Shaunna was the executive director of Bike & Build, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to raising money for and awareness of affordable housing issues through cross-country cycling events. Shaunna’s formal entry point into the progressive movement came in 2003 when she campaigned and raised money for the Democratic National Committee and was the lead organizer in MoveOn.org’s voter engagement project in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was during the 2004 election cycle that she was a witness to and part of the growing power of the youth progressive movement. Believing in the ability of young people to make positive social change in their communities, Shaunna dedicates her spare time to organizations that support young social entrepreneurs, sits on the board of Bike & Build, Inc., and serves as the coordinating committee chair of the Generational Alliance. Shaunna is a native Southern Californian and an alumna of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Rachel Burrows,
Fellowship Director

Rachel is a graduate of Skidmore College. Before joining Young People For, Rachel was an Eisendrath Legislative Fellow at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) in Washington, D.C. After her fellowship at RAC concluded, she went to work as a legislative representative for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). During her time in Washington, Rachel worked with a variety of progressive partners to fight for social justice on Capitol Hill and around the country.

Robert Mayer
Director of Education and Leadership

Robert joined the Young People For staff after working as a program associate at the White House Project. There, Robert worked on the Vote, Run, Lead initiative, which has trained more than 900 women across the country to run for office. Robert is a recent graduate of the University of Richmond, where he was a student leader and activist. While in college, Robert served as president of New Directions, a student group that successfully lobbied the University to be the first school in Virginia with a domestic partner benefits package and antidiscrimination policy inclusive of sexual minorities. Robert also organized community marches and campus protests leading up to the 2004 occupation of Iraq. While in Virginia, Robert attended the Sorenson Institute for Political Leadership at UVA and served as a media analyst on a gubernatorial campaign.

Calvin Williams
Fellowship Coordinator

Before joining YP4, Calvin served his community by teaching, first as a high school teacher in Purvis, Mississippi, and most recently as a social studies teacher at a middle school he once attended in his hometown of Montgomery, Alabama. Calvin graduated summa cum laude from LaGrange College with a bachelor’s degree in political science. Throughout college, he actively participated in various community service projects directed towards youth and community development — he was a member of the student government, developed periodic campus panel discussions on social and political issues, wrote for the college newspaper and created and hosted a weekly spoken word forum called the Cypher.

Sophia Kizilbash
Fellowship Associate

Sophia graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with a major in culture and politics. While at Georgetown, she co-founded an urban arts benefit show. After graduation, she moved to Malaysia to work for an Islamic Arts Museum, a Muslim women’s rights NGO, and to conduct research at the National University of Malaysia. Sophia later returned to Southeast Asia on a Fulbright grant to conduct fieldwork research on the politics of family planning advocacy among the Muslim minority in the Southern Philippines. Sophia recently completed her master’s degree in development studies from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. While in London and during a two-month fellowship in Jamaica, she worked with youth at a community-based level as a sexuality educator and peer education advisor. Sophia recently joined YP4 after working with high school students at a youth development organization in the South Bronx. She is also an active member of the Muslim Public Service Network, a leadership development organization that establishes American Muslims in public service and public policy careers.

Zach Dryden
Fellowship Associate

Zach will soon graduate from Florida State University with a bachelor's degree in political science. An active student leader, he has served as the director of the Pride Student Union, where he helped to establish the LGBTQ Student Resource Center. In this capacity, he also co-founded and served as chief organizer for the Coalition for an Equitable Community, an alliance of students and organizations dedicated to expanding the university's nondiscrimination policy to include protections on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. During this time, Zach also worked for Refuge House, a local domestic violence and rape crisis center, where, among other things, he helped develop a social justice program for college-aged participants. Before joining the YP4 staff, Zach was a Class of 2007 fellow and served on the YP4 Steering Committee.

Aliza Bartfield
Administrative Manager

Aliza became involved with YP4 while attending Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, where she designed her own course of study in progressive education theory and government policy. Since graduating, Aliza has been active in the management of YP4’s day-to-day operations and numerous progressive events, including the YP4 National Summit, the Young Elected Officials Network’s conference at the Clinton Library and YP4’s events and retreats in New York. Before joining YP4, Aliza worked with a number of organizations focused on youth and education issues, including the Arts-in-Education program at Henry Street Settlement House, where she helped teachers and high school students in Lower Manhattan public schools to integrate the arts into their curricula. Aliza is a native of New York City and currently lives in the East Village.

Rebecca Fureigh
Communications Manager

Fureigh joined Young People For after launching a podcast and doing other communications work for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Fureigh graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Reed College with a degree in sociology, having written a thesis about the backlash against political correctness, co-led the Queer Alliance, co-created the health resource guide ResourcesPDX.org for transgender and queer people in the Portland area, and filed radio pieces for Free Speech Radio News and an NPR affiliate. Fureigh serves on the board of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition, has served on the advisory board of the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and is a founding member of the Girls Rock Camps Alliance.

Jessica Pierce
Communications and Network Manager

This Bay Area native’s passion for student organizing started at UC Santa Cruz, where Jessica served as Student Union Assembly President for two terms. During her time there, she organized the student and youth vote for statewide and national elections and helped coordinate student efforts against Proposition 54, which would have removed all ethnic and racial data from public institutions. On campus she also fought for workers’ rights with campus unions. Working with the United States Student Association (USSA), Jessica served as the National Women’s Student Coalition chair, People of African Descent Caucus chair and Golden Pacific Region vice chair. Prior to joining YP4 staff, Jessica served as the organizing director for USSA, creating and organizing campaigns throughout the country that reflected the diversity of USSA constituents and represented the student voice on vital national coalitions such as the Generational Alliance and the College Affordability Coalition. Through her work with the Generational Alliance, Jessica helped to develop Generation Vote, a coalition of more than 20 organizations invested in building a youth movement through the election.

» Contact us