Marci Young is the project director for Pre-K Now, leading its campaign to advance high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all three and four year olds. Prior to joining Pre-K Now, Ms. Young was the director of the Center for the Child Care Workforce, a project of the American Federation of Teachers Educational Foundation and a deputy director in the AFT’s educational issues department where she oversaw all of the organization’s early childhood projects and activities to promote high-quality early childhood education.  She was the Executive Director of CCW when it was an independent nonprofit agency, where she co-authored several studies about early childhood education with specific emphasis on improving the status and condition of the workforce. Before that, she was a kindergarten teacher at an elementary school in Montgomery County, Maryland. Ms. Young holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University and a master’s degree in early childhood education from the University of Pennsylvania.

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David Scott Beard is the Senior Associate for state policy with Pre-K Now. He engages with both state advocates and policymakers to develop legislative strategies intended to increase pre-k quality and access across the country.

Prior to joining Pew, David served as the director of Policy and Practice at the Council for Children and Families, a Washington agency tasked with supporting families and preventing child abuse and neglect. David also worked on advocacy efforts with the Washington State Early Learning Action Alliance. He is very involved in his community, having served as co-chair for the Seattle LGBT Commission, on the board of the Out in Front Leadership Program and as co-chair of the Endorsements Committee of the Children's Campaign Fund.

David received his Master of Science in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Washington.

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As State Policy Associate, Allison de la Torre works with state advocates and policymakers to develop and implement advocacy and legislative strategies that will increase pre-k quality and availability for all three and four year olds. Before joining Pre-K Now in August 2007, Ms. de la Torre served as legislative assistant to Oregon State Senator Vicki L. Walker, chair of the Senate Education and General Government Committee. Prior to her work for Senator Walker, she worked at the Children’s Institute, a leading pre-k advocacy organization in Oregon.

Ms. de la Torre became an early childhood advocate at an early age. Her mother was a pre-kindergarten program director, and Ms. de la Torre began her career as a pre-k assistant in her home town of La Mesa, California. Her volunteer activities have included teaching pre-k to at-risk children in Quito, Ecuador, and tutoring bilingual kindergartners in Salem, Oregon.

Ms. de la Torre holds a bachelor's degree in politics and Spanish from Willamette University. In 2005, she studied abroad at the Universidad de San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador.

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Jennifer Doctors joined Pre-K Now in spring 2005, bringing a lifetime of writing and nearly ten years of professional experience. In this new role, her primary responsibilities include development of original material, management of institutional voice and style, and editorial review of organization publications.

Throughout her career, Ms. Doctors has maintained a focus on education issues and policy. From 2000-2004 she served as the editor of the ACSANews, the monthly newsletter of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and she has written for California College of the Arts, National University, Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools, and a number of individual academic professionals to develop curricula, programs, and published works.

Ms. Doctors has published a series of translations and writes short fiction, essays, and poetry. She holds a bachelor's degree in linguistics from the University of California at Santa Cruz and has studied creative writing at Hartwick College in New York and American University in Washington, D.C.

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Bryan Doyle joined the Pre-K Now staff as a communications fellow in July 2009. His responsibilities include preparing the daily media clips, updating the Web site's Today in Pre-K news, and drafting written communication.

A freelance journalist, Mr. Doyle has written for publications across the Deep South, and continues to write regularly for the weekly Jackson Free Press in Jackson, Miss. A 2008 journalism graduate of The University of Mississippi, he served as editor in chief of The Daily Mississippian, where he earned nods for editorial excellence from The William Randolph Hearst Foundation, The Society for Professional Journalists and the Southeastern Journalism Conference. Under his leadership, The Princeton Review named The DM one of the nation’s “Top Ten Best Campus Newspapers.”

In 2008, Mr. Doyle served as a media specialist and community organizer for the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, a pioneering Mississippi nonprofit designed to promote local, dialogue-based solutions to healing racial divides in the South.

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Jessica Goldberg joined Pre-K Now as state policy fellow in July 2009. Her responsibilities include tracking political, legislative, and budgetary information, researching state pre-k programs, and working with Pre-K Now state partners.

Ms. Goldberg graduated from Brown University with honors in May 2009 with a BA in Education Studies and Public Policy. Her senior honors thesis, “Worksheets or Water Tables? Student Achievement in Early Childhood Kindergartens,” was awarded the Reginald Archambault Award for Outstanding Thesis in the Department of Education.

During her time at Brown, Ms. Goldberg had the opportunity to observe and participate in high quality pre-k first as a classroom volunteer and eventually as a substitute assistant teacher.

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Masooma Hussain provides program and administrative support to the staff of Pre-K Now. Prior to this role, she worked as a program associate for Karamah, a Muslim women’s rights organization based in Washington, DC. Within this capacity Masooma primarily developed and coordinated the organization’s law and leadership trainings for Muslim women. Her interest in public service and issues relating to immigration and education developed through her work as an outreach intern for the Tahirih Justice Center, a non-profit organization that provides direct legal services to immigrant women fleeing gender-based violence. Fluent in Urdu, Ms. Hussain currently uses her language skills to serve as a bilingual advocate for the API Domestic Violence Resource Project, where she works one on one with survivors of domestic violence and participates in community outreach programs.

Ms. Hussain graduated from New York University (NYU) with a BA in Politics and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies.

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Krissi Jimroglou is the project manager for communications with Pre-K Now. She develops and implements communications strategies that support Pre-K Now's state and federal policy objectives. Ms. Jimroglou joins Pew following nine years with the Service Employees International Union where she held several positions, most recently, communications coordinator in the healthcare division. During her tenure at SEIU, she taught effective internet strategies to local unions around the country, provided communications strategy recommendations on multiple organizing, legislative and electoral campaigns and directed communications for a statewide ballot initiative to give home care workers in Missouri a voice on the job. Before her work in the labor movement, Ms. Jimroglou directed a nonprofit computer training center in Washington, DC.

Ms. Jimroglou received her Master of Arts in Communication, Culture, and Technology from Georgetown University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Monmouth College.

Kristen Moorhead serves as Pre-K Now’s Senior Web Associate, a position that compliments her interests in writing, technology, and nonprofit management. Along with maintaining our organization’s presence on the web, she leads our e-advocacy campaign and advises our partners on their e-communication strategies.

Before joining Pre-K Now in April of 2008, Ms. Moorhead worked as the National Organization for Women’s Internet Communications Coordinator. Her commitment to obtaining pre-k-for-all stems from her own experiences raising a pre-kindergartner, her dedication to issues affecting women and children, and her personal belief that a quality, pre-k foundation for all American children can revitalize the U.S. education system. She has witnessed the benefits of pre-k as a former student, a parent, and professionally as a Head Start parent advocate.

Ms. Moorhead holds a bachelor's degree in Sociology/Anthropology from Spelman College. In 2001, she studied abroad in Botswana and Brazil.

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Liz Snyder joined Pre-K Now as the senior associate for communications in April of 2009 with a background in strategic communication, education reform and advocacy campaigns. As senior communications associate, Ms. Snyder will be responsible for overseeing the daily media clips, as well as media relations for Pre-K Now. She will coordinate media outreach strategy for Pre-K Now in collaboration with the Pew Center on the States’ communications team and with Pre-K Now state partners.

Prior to joining Pre-K Now, Ms. Snyder was the deputy press secretary for the bipartisan Strong American Schools’ ED in 08 campaign, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation. In this position, she pitched and fielded stories to state and national press, served as a spokesperson for the campaign and worked with the campaign’s state teams to create highly visible and high-quality field and media events.

She also worked on communications for Pew’s Economic Mobility Project and served as manager of media and government relations for DynCorp International. Ms. Snyder holds a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Tech where she studied communication, political science and business; and a master’s degree in government and political communication from Johns Hopkins University.

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Albert Wat is the Project Manager for Pre-K Now, providing the staff with the latest information on states' pre-kindergarten programs and on developments in early education research.

Mr. Wat came to Pre-K Now from Georgetown University's Center for Social Justice where he directed the DC Schools Project, a literacy initiative that trains college students to serve as literacy tutors and instructors for low-income children and adults with immigrant backgrounds in Washington, D.C. He previously directed the America Reads program at the University of Michigan.

Mr. Wat began his career in education as a high school English teacher in California. He has also worked with the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative and served as an AmeriCorps member at Partners in School Innovation, a school reform organization based in San Francisco. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology, a master's in education from Stanford University, and a master's in education policy from the George Washington University.

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Libby Doggett is a Deputy Director in the Pew Center on the States, a division of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Prior to joining the Trusts, Dr. Doggett directed Pre-K Now, funded by the Trusts and other foundations to secure high quality pre-k for all three and four year olds across the country. Through the success of this campaign and others, Pew hired Doggett to oversee four projects which support state campaigns to advance smart state policies and practices that help young children become healthy, productive adults. These efforts seek to expand high quality pre-k, improve access to dental care for disadvantaged children, expand proven home visiting services for at-risk families, and educate business leaders about the economic returns to investments in children prenatal to age five.

Upon coming to Washington, D.C., in 1995, Dr. Doggett worked in the U.S. Department of Education, where she served as special assistant to the director of special education (OSEP) and as executive director of the Federal Interagency Coordinating Council, coordinating multiple federal services for infants, toddlers, children with disabilities, and their families. She then worked for the National Head Start Association, directing their HeadsUp! Reading program, an innovative, credit-bearing course designed to provide early-childhood professionals the skills needed to help young children learn to read and write.

Dr. Doggett’s public-service record predates her tenure in Washington. In her home state of Texas, she served as the executive director of the Arc of Texas, the largest voluntary organization for persons with mental retardation and their families in the Lone Star State. She also helped found and then chaired the Disability Policy Consortium, a coalition of 20 Texas disability advocacy organizations.

Dr. Doggett co-authored the first book written on child care and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Honors for her leadership on children’s and disability issues include an appointment to the Texas Commission on Children and Youth, the Governor’s Trophy from the Governor’s Committee on the Employment of Persons with Disabilities in Texas, and the Friend of Early Childhood Intervention award. She holds a doctorate from the University of Texas in early-childhood special education.

During her undergraduate years at the University of Texas, she met her husband Lloyd Doggett, currently a U.S. Representative from Texas and a senior Member on the Ways & Means Committee. The Doggetts have two daughters, Lisa and Cathy, and two granddaughters, Ella and Clara.

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Anya Malkov joined Pre-K Now in June 2008 as Federal Policy Fellow. She helps advance the federal agenda in support of state-funded pre-k and assists with federal policy initiatives across the children’s campaigns within the Pew Center on the States.

Ms. Malkov graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dickinson College with a BA in Policy Management in May 2008. She attributes her academic success partly to early education – growing up in Russia, Ms. Malkov attended several years of pre-kindergarten. Her family immigrated when she was 14.

While at Dickinson, Ms. Malkov discovered a passion for public service and social policy through her work with Student Senate, which she was eventually elected to lead as president. Ms. Malkov has pursued her interests in education, health and immigration policy while studying abroad in Málaga, Spain, and serving as a Finnegan Fellow in the Legislative Affairs Office at the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

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Matt Mulkey works on communications strategy across all children’s campaigns within the Pew Center on the States. In this role, he provides communications support and advice to the Pre-K Now team.

Until January 2009, Mr. Mulkey was the director of communications for Pre-K Now, where he oversaw the organization's media outreach, marketing, and messaging to advance the issue of high-quality pre-k for all children. He first came to Pre-K Now in May 2005 and served as Internet communications manager.

Previously, Mr. Mulkey managed e-advocacy at People For the American Way, where he helped develop innovative strategies that mobilized more than 10,000 volunteer election monitors for the 2004 election. He led People For's efforts to engage online supporters in campaigns to reduce class sizes, secure equitable public-school funding, and protect students' and teachers' religious liberty, among other issues.

Prior to his involvement in People For's online initiatives, Mr. Mulkey was the northeast field coordinator, working with grassroots advocates and elected officials to advance shared goals at the state and local levels. He received his bachelor of arts in international relations from Kent State University.

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Rosalinda Ortega is the event coordinator for all major events for the multiple children’s policy initiatives within Pew Center on the States. Previously, she was the Program Assistant at Pre-K Now. Her responsibilities included providing executive and administrative support to the communications, federal policy, and state policy teams. She also assists with major organization events and finances.

Before coming to Pre-K Now, Ms. Ortega served as an insurance claims assistant at Miller and Long Co., Inc. She was an intern at the Texas Office of State and Federal Relations and worked as a fundraising assistant for a mayoral campaign in San Antonio, Texas. Her volunteer activities include tutoring elementary school children through groups such as Horton’s Kids.

Ms. Ortega holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Mary’s University.

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Kathy Patterson joined Pre-K Now in March 2007 as federal policy director after serving 12 years as a member of the District of Columbia Council. In January 2009 she became a senior officer with the Pew Center on the States, managing federal policy advocacy across the PCS children’s campaigns – including home visiting and oral health for children as well as pre-k. She helps to advance our agenda on Capitol Hill and works closely with other national organizations to pursue shared early education goals.

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Stephanie Rubin is Director of State Policy for Pew Center on the States. Previously, she served as state program director at Pre-K Now. As Director of State Policy for Pew Center on the States, she coordinates state policy and advocacy strategies across the multiple children’s policy initiatives within Pew Center on the States and oversees Pre-K Now’s overall advocacy strategy.

Prior to joining Pre-K Now, Ms. Rubin led advocacy efforts to increase public investment in early education, after-school, mental health and child abuse prevention services at Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California.

Previously, she served as Legislative Director to California State Senator Tom Hayden and Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Higher Education in Sacramento, California.

Ms. Rubin received her BA in History from Princeton University and her law degree from UCLA. Her volunteer activities include participating in election observation teams in Latin America, serving as a judge in a youthful offender diversion program and advocating for abused and neglected children as a Court Appointed Special Advocate.

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