beyond the lab

campaign management

Campaign Manager, Jeanine Calkin for Rhode Island State Senate (District 30, Warwick) — 2020

As a Brown undergraduate, I managed Jeanine Calkin’s 2020 campaign to return to the Rhode Island State Senate. She defeated the incumbent in the September Democratic primary, 55% to 45%, and went on to win the general election.

As campaign manager, I set the campaign’s strategy and ran its day-to-day operations: building the field plan, recruiting and coordinating volunteers, managing the budget and fundraising, and shaping the candidate’s message.

The campaign ran during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the candidate’s health put her at higher risk, I led the door-to-door canvass myself, masked and at a distance, while she reached voters by phone and social media. The campaign took no corporate or lobbyist money.

writing

Great Streets, Mobile City: Envisioning an equitable transportation system for the creative capital
with Avi Shapiro · The College Hill Independent

Providence’s Great Streets Plan proposed a citywide network of protected bike lanes and greenways within easy reach of nearly every resident and job. We argued that decarbonizing transportation means more than swapping gasoline cars for electric ones: it means funding frequent transit and safe bike and pedestrian infrastructure, and planning with the communities who most need to get around without a car.

organizing

Lead Organizer, Sunrise Movement

As a Brown undergraduate, I organized with the Sunrise Movement’s Rhode Island and Brown/RISD hubs, part of the youth-led movement pushing for Green New Deal climate policy. I helped organize the September 2019 Climate Strike, which brought an estimated 1,000 people to the Rhode Island State House. In 2020, as the pandemic ended mass demonstrations, we shifted to electoral work: text banking with Brown Votes to turn out student voters and phone banking with the Rhode Island Political Cooperative for progressive candidates.