State Senator Alex Bergstein is the first woman ever and the first Democrat since 1930 to represent the 36th District of Connecticut - Greenwich, New Canaan and Stamford. She is the Deputy Majority Leader, Chair of the Banking Committee and Vice Chair of both the Judiciary and the Transportation Committees. Alex began her career as a corporate lawyer at the firm of Skadden Arps in New York. Then she pivoted to public policy and spent 15 years advocating for Environmental Health and Gender Equality. As Chair of the non-profit Mount Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center, she helped establish the world’s leading lab researching the impact of toxins on human health. In 2015, Alex founded The Parity Partnership, a non-profit that framed gender equality as an economic imperative. In 2014, Alex earned a Masters in Environmental Law & Policy at Yale University and was writing her PhD dissertation when she pivoted from academia to politics. With an unprecedented amount of volunteer support, Alex unseated a 5-term Republican incumbent to win an “impossible” Senate seat. Her platform is nonpartisan, fiscally responsible and socially progressive. Alex is actively changing the narrative about Connecticut by focusing on real facts and real solutions with a positive vision and plan of action. She believes if we want to see change, we need to be the change.
Andrea Aldrich
I am currently a faculty member in Political Science at Yale University where my research and teaching interests revolve around the study of gender, political parties, and representation. My current research projects explore the relationship between internal political party dynamics, elections, and legislative representation. I have recently published work that examines the effectiveness of gender quotas in European elections and the influence gender quotas have on political careers. I am also a co-chair of the Political Parties Research Network for the Council of European Studies at Columbia University and have recently represented the United States as an election observer with the Organization of Economic and Security Co-operation in Europe. Before arriving at Yale, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Houston and a visiting scholar at Texas A&M University and the University of Chicago. I received my Ph.D. in 2015 from the University of Pittsburgh where I was a member of the Dietrich School of Arts and Science Graduate School Council, an Andrew Mellon Fellow, and a recipient of the Haas Fellowship from the European Union Studies Association. As a graduate student, I was also a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Zagreb in Croatia and I continue to volunteer with the Fulbright program in the US.
Krishanti Vignarajah
Krish is the President and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. She previously served in the Obama White House as Policy Director for First Lady Michelle Obama and at the State Department as Senior Advisor under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of State John Kerry. Krish has committed her career to public service because she knows how differently life could have turned out. Krish was 9-months old when she and her family escaped a country on the brink of civil war and built a life in Maryland. Her parents came to this country with no jobs and $200 in their pockets. Krish is a graduate from Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County and then attended Yale College, where she earned a Master’s degree in Political Science and a B.S. in Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University, where she received an M.Phil. in International Relations, before returning to Yale Law School, where she served on the Yale Law Journal. Krish’s interest in public service and grassroots politics began at an early age. In elementary school, Krish went knocking door to door with her mother in support of Senator Barbara Mikulski when she won her historic first race for the Senate. In college, Krish worked for another great public servant when she spent her summer back from college working for Senator Paul Sarbanes. Krish recently finished serving as Policy Director for Michelle Obama and led the First Lady’s signature Let Girls Learn initiative. Previously, she served as Senior Advisor at the State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of State John Kerry where she coordinated development and implementation of multiple programs including those concerning refugees and migration, engagement with religious communities, the legal dimensions of U.S. foreign policy, and regional issues relating to Africa and the Middle East. She worked closely with PRM, Consular Affairs, Health & Human Services and the Department of Defense. Before joining the White House, Krish worked at McKinsey & Company, where she consulted for Fortune 100 companies, practiced law at Jenner & Block in Washington, DC, clerked for Chief Judge Michael Boudin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and taught at Georgetown University as an adjunct. Krish and her husband, Collin O’Mara are the parents of a young daughter, Alana.
Frances Rosenbluth
Frances McCall Rosenbluth is the Damon Wells Professor of Political Science at Yale University and a comparative political economist whose recent work focuses on Japan’s political economy; the political economy of gender; war and constitutions; and the politics of democratic accountability. Her most recent books include: Women, Work, and Power (with Torben Iversen, Yale University Press 2010), Japan Transformed (with Michael Thies, Princeton University Press), Forged Through Fire: Military Conflict and the Democratic Bargain (with John Ferejohn, Norton 2016); andResponsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself (with Ian Shapiro, Yale 2018). She graduated from the University of Virginia in 1980 with highest distinction, received her M.I.A. from Columbia in 1983, and her Ph.D. from Columbia in 1988. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, the Social Science Research Council, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Abe Foundation, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.