Stephanie Valencia is currently Special Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Director of Public Engagement overseeing critical engagement programs like Champions of Change and the Community Leaders Briefing Series. She has served in the White House Office of Public Engagement since February 2009 where she originally handled outreach to the Latino community, immigration, and housing. She also worked on Puerto Rico issues. Prior to joining the Administration, Stephanie served on the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team and was Deputy Latino Vote Director on the Obama Campaign. Stephanie also served as Press Secretary to United States Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO), serving as his spokeswoman and media advisor. Stephanie also worked in the House of Representatives as Special Assistant and Press Secretary to the Vice Chair of the Democratic Caucus, Congressman John B. Larson from Connecticut. She also served as Press Secretary Congresswoman Linda Sanchez. Stephanie started her career as a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Fellow and is a graduate of Boston College. She was born and in raised in New Mexico and she and her husband and their two dogs reside in North Bethesda, Maryland.

Rumana Ahmed is the Executive Assistant to the Director of Public Engagement. In addition to playing a supportive role to the Director and Deputy Assistant to the President, she also leads the White House Champions of Change program and works on special projects, including the 2013 Citizens Medal. Before her transition over to the Office of Public Engagement, Rumana served as a Senior Analyst in the Office of Presidential Correspondence. Prior to joining the White House, she was at the Department of Commerce’s Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, conducting research on the commercial expansion of America’s green economy. Rumana was born and raised in Maryland and is a graduate of The George Washington University, where she received her B.A. in International Affairs with concentrations in International Economics and Development.

Katherine Branch is the Director of Special Projects and Special Assistant to the Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett. In this role, she oversees and executes a variety of projects designed to support the Senior Advisor in her roles as head of the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and as chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls. Branch has been a key member of the Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs team since the very beginning of the President’s first term, and has played a vital role in its work to promote the President’s agenda.

David is the Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff for the Office of Public Engagement and the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Prior to joining the White House, David served on The President¹s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and worked for the 2012 Obama-Biden campaign in Chicago. A native Hoosier and graduate of DePauw University, David got his start with the President in early 2008 as a volunteer for then Senator Obama¹s campaign in Iowa.

Quinn St.Clair Fitzgerald is a Staff Assistant in the Office of Public Engagement. Previously, Quinn served as an intern in the Office of Public Engagement working on Native American outreach and young American outreach. The proud Boston, Massachusetts native graduated from the College of the Holy Cross where she developed her passion for public service.

Galbraith has most recently served as a Deputy Associate Counsel for Presidential Personnel in the White House. He has also previously worked as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Arizona and as a Legislative Assistant to United States Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota. During the Obama Campaign for Change, Galbraith served as the Convener of the Native American Domestic Policy Committee organizing a nationwide group of tribal leaders and activists in developing policy proposals for the campaign. Galbraith is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, received his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago, and graduated from the Arizona State University College of Law. During law school, Galbraith served as the Vice-President of the Native American Law Students Association and clerked for the Native American Rights Fund in Washington, DC.

Zaid Hassan is currently serving as a Staff Assistant in the Office of Public Engagement and the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. He is also the Assistant to the Special Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Director of OPE.

Prior to joining the White House, Zaid worked on the Obama-Biden 2012 re-election campaign. He initially served with the operations and travel teams at the campaign headquarters in Chicago and organized in the field thereafter as Iowa’s Deputy Get Out the Vote Director.

Before his yearlong commitment with the Obama for America campaign, Zaid served at the Texas state legislature and held leadership positions with several non-profit organizations in Austin.

A proud Longhorn, he received his B.A. in Government from The University of Texas at Austin. Zaid was raised in Lahore, Pakistan and Austin, Texas.

Brad Jenkins is an Associate Director heading up coalition-building programs across a range of communities including nonprofits, foundations, labor, and business. Before joining the White House, Brad was a Founding Vice President of Business Forward, a national business group that helps bring more innovators and entrepreneurs into the policymaking process. Prior to Business Forward, Brad was the National Deputy Director of Special Projects for the Obama Campaign in Chicago, directing the intersection between the Field campaign and new media operations with a particular focus on youth media and the online voter registration platform. Prior to joining the campaign, Brad spent 6 years as an investment professional in New York and San Francisco. Brad grew up in Hamilton, NJ and received his B.A. in English from the University of Virginia.

Ari Matusiak is Special Assistant to the President and Director of Private Sector Engagement, where he provides strategic and management oversight of the Administration’s interaction with the private sector. He works with entrepreneurs, small business owners and corporate and financial leaders, finding ways for the Administration to partner with the business community on efforts to spur job creation and our long-term economic competitiveness. Ari has extensive experience in community and economic development and in building strategic collaboration between the public and private sectors. He is the co-founder of Young Invincibles, a national organization dedicated to improving economic opportunities for 18 to 34 year olds. Prior to moving to Washington, Ari was vice president for strategy and community impact at The Rhode Island Foundation, one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the country. While there, Ari also directed HousingWorks RI, a statewide affordable housing coalition and campaign. In that capacity, he led a successful statewide referendum campaign for affordable housing production that leveraged nearly $500 million in additional investment, doubled the production of affordable housing and created thousands of good paying jobs in the state. Ari served as a fellow on Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee in the United States Senate. He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University and cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was also named a Public Interest Law Scholar. He is originally from Wisconsin and is a diehard Green Bay Packers fan.

Matt is an Associate Director in the Office of Public Engagement and is the White House liaison to the Jewish community. He joined the Obama Administration in 2009 as Senior Counselor to Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez. In 2012, he became the Associate General Counsel for Legal Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security. Matt earned his B.A. in History with Honors and a law degree from Stanford University, was a Truman Scholar, and studied in Israel. Since moving to Washington, Matt has worked in the private, public and non-profit sectors, including in the Clinton Justice Department’s Office of Policy Development, on the House Judiciary Committee Minority Staff, and as Counsel for Senator Bill Nelson of Florida. In 2008 he worked for the Obama-Biden campaign in Florida. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his partner and fifteen-year-old son, and has been an active member of an area Reconstructionist Congregation since 1995.

Karen Richardson is a Public Engagement Advisor responsible for conducting outreach to the international community, which includes domestically-based advocacy and non-governmental organizations, amongst others, working on a variety of foreign policy issues. Her portfolio also includes conducting outreach to the health care and seniors community, a role she assumed in January 2009 as health care outreach coordinator for the White House Office of Health Reform and the White House Office of Public Engagement. Richardson has also been Senior Advisor to Ambassador Melanne Verveer at the U.S. State Department.

Richardson began working for President Obama at his Senate Office in August 2005, serving as Deputy to the Policy Director. Shortly after Obama announced his presidential run, Richardson joined the Obama for America campaign as the State Policy Director for Iowa, a role she assumed in several states throughout the presidential primary. In July 2008 Richardson became the Policy Director at the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and also joined the DNC as part of then-Senator Obama’s Congressional Liaison team. After the presidential general election, she joined the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team.

Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Los Angeles, California, Richardson has a BA from Howard University, a JD from Howard University School of Law, and a Masters in International Affairs from the London School of Economics.

Hallie Schneir manages the White House’s outreach to Women and Girls across the country. She works in partnership with the White House Council on Women & Girls, to ensure that women, girls and the people who care about them are connected to the policies and programs of the Federal government. Prior to joining the Office of Public Engagement, Hallie spent two years at the Department of Veterans Affairs, in the office of Secretary Eric K. Shinseki. Hallie joined the Obama for America campaign in Iowa in March 2007, before finishing the 2008 campaign in North Carolina. Hallie is a proud graduate of Barnard College.