Meet the POPVOX Team

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Marci Harris

CEO, Co-Founder

Marci is passionate about the responsible use of technology to benefit humanity. She developed the concept for POPVOX while working as a Congressional staffer on the team drafting the Affordable Care Act. She was named a “Top 100 Most Creative People in Business” by Fast Company (2012), and has been a fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democracy (2016), New America California (2017), and is an affiliated scholar with the CITRIS Policy Lab at UC Berkeley. She holds a B.A. from Franklin University Lugano, Switzerland, a J.D. from the University of Memphis and an LL.M. from the American University Washington College of Law. She is a lecturer at San Jose State University, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, and an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Management.

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Rachna Choudhry

Co-Founder

For Rachna, advocacy has always been about sharing personal stories to influence policymaking. After 10 years of advocacy and lobbying for several nonprofit organizations, she co-founded POPVOX based on her experiences (and frustrations) connecting with lawmakers. She offers grassroots advocacy strategy to organizations, helping them engage their supporters and amplify their voice. Rachna serves on the board of PLEN, which trains women for policy careers. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA, and a Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University’s McCourt School. She’s based in Washington, DC.

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Ben Harris

COO / CFO

Ben graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2001 where he earned a BS in Aviation Technology. He is an FAA Certified mechanic and commercial pilot. He is a “CO:founder” of theCO in Jackson, TN, a public-private partnership co-work, makerspace and code academy designed to bring cutting edge technology and education to rural West Tennessee. Ben is a 2005 graduate of the Jackson Chamber of Commerce "Leadership Jackson" program, and a proud Boy Scout board member.

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Bryan Dease

CTO

Bryan has a passion for all areas of web technology from coding and deploying websites to maintaining servers and working on mobile platform solutions. In his own words his goal is to “support great design with solid code under the hood”. His main areas of expertise are PHP (Laravel), MySQL, Javascript, HTML5 and CSS. Bryan has worked with interactive studios based both in St. Louis and Tennessee. Most recently, with Anode in Nashville, he built interactive exhibits for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Public Library. In his spare time he enjoys playing guitar, traveling and attending Nashville Predators games.

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Lauren Fitzgerald

Intern

Lauren Fitzgerald is an eighteen year-old community organizer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has worked on several local, state, and federal campaigns as a Field Director and Organizer and collaborates frequently with cities in the Bay to address youth issues. When not working or in class, Lauren loves riding public transit and surfing.