Speaker Bios

Cheryl Boudreau
University of California, Davis

Professor Boudreau will be speaking during the general session on Saturday, May 20 in the Gallery Ballroom.

Cheryl Boudreau is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at UC Davis. She received her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis and her Ph.D. in political science from UC San Diego. Her research examines whether and when different types of political information help voters to make informed political decisions. She uses experiments in survey, laboratory, and field settings to investigate the effects that information like endorsements, voter guides, public opinion polls, and policy information have on voters’ decisions. Her research sheds light on when these types of information help uninformed voters to behave as
though they are more informed.

Boudreau currently serves as an Associate Principal Investigator for Time-Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences (TESS). Her research has been published in journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, and Political Communication.

Cathy Darling Allen
County Clerk/Registrar of Voters, Shasta County

Ms. Darling Allen will be speaking during the general session on Saturday, May 20 in the Gallery Ballroom.

Cathy Darling Allen has served as the Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters since 2004, and was elected to her fourth term of office in 2018.

She has overseen the administration of 28 elections and counted more than 1.2 million votes. Cathy has overseen the implementation of two voting technologies and steered Shasta County elections through major changes in California election law and regulation.

Cathy has always been an active member of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials (CACEO), serving on the Elections Legislative Committee, the Board of Directors, and as President (2012-2014). She received certification from CACEO as a California Professional Election Administrator in 2005 and as a Certified Elections/Registration Administrator (CERA) from the Elections Center in 2016.

Cathy is also an originating member of the Future of California Elections (FOCE) collaborative, and serves on the board of the California Voter Foundation. She lives in Redding with her husband.

Lisa García Bedolla
University of California, Berkeley

Professor García Bedolla will be the keynote speaker during the banquet on Friday, May 19 in the Gallery Ballroom.

Lisa García Bedolla serves as Berkeley’s Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division, and a Professor in the Berkeley School of Education. She uses the tools of social science to reveal the causes of
educational and political inequalities in the United States, considering differences across the lines of ethnorace, gender, class, geography, et cetera. She has used a variety of social science methods – participant observation, in-depth interviewing, survey research, field experiments, and geographic information systems (GIS) – to shed light on this question.

She has published six books and dozens of research articles, earning five national book awards and numerous other awards. She has consulted for presidential campaigns and statewide ballot efforts and has partnered with over a dozen community organizations working to empower low-income communities of color. Through those partnerships, she has developed a set of best practices for engaging and mobilizing voters in these
communities, becoming one of the nation’s foremost experts on political engagement within communities of color.

Professor García Bedolla earned her PhD in political science from Yale University and her BA in Latin American Studies and Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley.

Ash Kalra
California Assemblymember

Assemblymember Kalra will be a speaker in our panel discussion, “Driving Impact: The Importance of
Collaboration” – Friday, May 19 from 11:00-12:30pm in the Gallery Ballroom.

Assemblymember Ash Kalra represents California’s 25th District, which encompasses the majority of San José,
including downtown and open space areas northeast of Santa Clara County. He was first elected in 2016, becoming the first Indian American to serve in the California Legislature in state history, and was re-elected to his fourth term in 2022.

Assemblymember Kalra is Chair of the California Legislative Progressive Caucus to help guide a strategic, thoughtful approach to advancing a compassionate, inclusive agenda for Californians. He has established himself as a leader on issues ranging from criminal justice reform to environmental protection, and has championed legislation on health care reform and sustainability, housing affordability, growing transportation
infrastructure, and expanding economic opportunity for all.

In the State Assembly, he has authored successful legislation promoting secure and peaceful communities for all residents, including protecting and preserving civil rights and civil liberties, and has dedicated his tenure in public service to equity and social justice issues.

To confront racism and systemic bias in our systems of justice, he authored the historic California Racial Justice Act of 2020 (AB 2542), a landmark bill addressing racial discrimination in criminal sentencing and convictions and a follow up bill in 2022 (AB 256) to apply the Act retroactively for persons with past convictions. As a longstanding champion of a single-payer health care system, Assemblymember Kalra introduced AB 1400 in 2021 – the statewide legislation also known as CalCare – which would guarantee comprehensive, high-quality health care for all Californians as a human right.

Assemblymember Ash Kalra was born in Toronto, Canada, and moved to California as a young child, residing in the same South San José neighborhood where he grew up. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a law degree from Georgetown University.

Lori Pesante
Dolores Huerta Foundation

Ms. Pesante will be a speaker in our panel discussion, “Driving Impact: The Importance of Collaboration” – Friday, May 19 from 11:00-12:30pm in the Gallery Ballroom.

Lori began her career studying the humanities in the Jesuit tradition in Seattle, Italy, East Germany, Cuba and Mexico, then teaching 6th grade newcomer students in Delano, California. Lori earned her Juris Doctorate from UC Hastings College of the Law and worked in a variety of public interest contexts including the San Francisco District Attorney’s office under Kamala Harris, the Kern County Public Defenders Office, public
employee unions, legal aid organizations, and higher education.

At DHF, Lori runs comprehensive strategic civic engagement and legislative advocacy programming that has transformed power dynamics in the Central Valley. DHF’s redistricting campaign was the most comprehensive grassroots community mapping effort ever in the history of the Central Valley and reached over 5,000 residents, leading to a complete reversal of the ratio of Voting Rights Act districts to non-Voting Rights Act
districts at the state and federal level and increasing supervisorial Voting Rights Act districts by 135%. It also led to two (2) bills in the state legislature to establish Independent Redistricting Commissions for Fresno and Kern Counties.

Lori is also responsible for accountability programming that builds the capacity of grassroots leaders to strengthen vital democratic functions through Election Protection, anti-voter suppression, public meeting participation, and public safety consent decree monitoring. Lori is particularly concerned about the health of local information ecosystems and regularly attends professional development opportunities like social
media monitoring and the University of Chicago’s “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference to ensure voters’ autonomy is respected and local elections are fair.

Thanh Tran
Documentarian, Organizer

Mr. Tran will be a speaker in our panel discussion, “Driving Impact: The Importance of Collaboration” – Friday, May 19 from 11:00-12:30pm in the Gallery Ballroom.

Thanh Tran is a mixed race, Vietnamese and Black, documentary filmmaker and organizer from Sacramento,
California. He is the co-creator and co-host of the podcast “Uncuffed”. He is also the cofounder of the currently incarcerated film production team “ForwardThis Productions.” Today he is the Director of the documentary “Finding Ma” and the Policy Associate at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights – providing leadership and working in coalitions for state and local policy campaigns.

Taina Vargas
Initiate Justice Action

Ms. Vargas will be a speaker in our panel discussion, “Driving Impact: The Importance of Collaboration” – Friday, May 19 from 11:00-12:30pm in the Gallery Ballroom.

Taina Vargas is a prison abolitionist policy advocate and community organizer. She co-founded Initiate Justice in 2016 and Initiate Justice Action in 2021 with the goal of activating the political power of people directly impacted by mass incarceration. Since its inception, Initiate Justice has successfully co-sponsored multiple pieces of legislation aimed at ending mass incarceration and recruited more than 45,000 currently incarcerated people that have helped lead these efforts. Prior to creating Initiate Justice and Initiate Justice Action, she worked in the organizing and policy advocacy field as the Statewide Advocacy Coordinator with Essie Justice Group, State Campaigner with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and as a Field Representative for the California State Assembly. In 2020, she chaired the Yes on Prop 17 ballot measure committee, leading the efforts to restore voting rights to all people who have completed their prison sentences in California. She is also directly impacted by mass incarceration, having supported a loved one who was incarcerated for 7 years.