Austin Thompson
Austin is a student at Howard University studying political science and anthropology. He has worked on Capitol Hill, including a recent internship with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and at the Center for American Progress. He is a committed economic justice and human rights activist in the Washington, D.C., area, where he works to organize students locally and internationally on campuses around the world. In addition to Pushback, Austin writes opinion pieces for the Howard campus newspaper, The Hilltop. His other interests include African-American literature from 1835 to 1929 and urban gardening.
Bradley Portnoy
Brad, a student at Brown University, is scheduled to graduate in May 2009 with a degree in public policy. He's currently finishing up a year abroad in the United Kingdom at the London School of Economics. Brad has worked as an intern for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, where he contributed to the Committee's blog, The Stakeholder, during the 2006 cycle and at the House Democratic Caucus. At Brown, he organized the first on-campus event to provide free and anonymous oral swab HIV testing to students. Originally hailing from West Bloomfield, Michigan, Brad is proud to call Providence, Washington, and London his second homes.
Daniel Strauss
Daniel Strauss is a history major at the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor and is hoping to graduate in 2010 like a normal student. He has interned at the SouthtownStar (back when it was just the Star) in suburban Chicago, The New Yorker, The American Prospect, and Roll Call. A Chicago native, when Daniel isn't off interning he is either writing for The Michigan Daily or the Gargoyle humor magazine.
Diana Jou
Diana’s love for art and politics developed while she was studying at the University of California, Irvine. She graduated in 2007 with a degree in Asian American studies and studio art. In college, she enjoyed editing a progressive culture magazine called Jaded. She has interned for Visual Communications in Los Angeles, the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., and, thanks to a Humanity in Action fellowship, at Afrikaherz in Berlin. She is currently finishing a photo book project about Muslim American women called Make/Believe. She maintains a visual studies blog called Systems of Operation.
Dylan Matthews
Dylan Matthews is a student at Harvard College, hoping to graduate in 2012. He started his personal blog (
http://minipundit.typepad.com/) in a fit of middle-school boredom in February 2004, and has maintained it out of an uneasy mixture of guilt and addiction ever since. He has spent summers working for Slate, the Obama primary campaign in New Hampshire, and The American Prospect, and has been praised as "incredibly myopic" (The New Republic) and a "fascist motherf**ker" (Billmon). When not in Cambridge, Dylan can be found at his house in Hanover, NH.
Emily Rutherford
Hailing from the suburbs of San Diego, California, Emily will be a freshman at Princeton University in the fall of 2008. While she is considering studying history, sociology, computer science, American studies, or some amalgam thereof, her only firm plans include graduating from high school and matriculating at college without anything too bizarre happening. Extracurricularly, she is involved in lighting design and other aspects of technical theater (among other things) and is interested in sex education and LGBT awareness. Although Emily has been blogging and writing personal essays in various contexts for over three years, Pushback is her first official writing gig.
Jamelle Bouie
Jamelle Bouie is a fourth-year student at the University of Virginia, where he is pursuing an interdisciplinary major in political theory and religious studies. He's originally from Florida, but has spent most of his life in the Old Dominion (his parents are both retired military). For more than a year, he has maintained a personal blog (
http://usjamerica.wordpress.com), and this summer had the opportunity to guest blog at Feministe. When he's not blogging, he is busy working on his thesis (currently projected to hit the *gulp* 100 page mark), interning at U. Va's Miller Center of Public Affairs, and trying not to fail at being an RA. He's currently freaking out about graduation and the prospect of being a real person.
Jamie Henn
When he's not writing for Pushback, Jamie is the co-coordinator of 350.org, an international global warming campaign. In 2007, he co-organized Step It Up, a pioneering project in open-source activism that pulled together over 2,000 climate rallies across the United States. Jamie grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hoofed it up to Vermont for college, and is just settling into new digs in San Francisco. Track him down at Changents.com, ItsGettingHotinHere.org, and 350.org.
Jesse Singal
Jesse is an associate editor of Pushback and CampusProgress.org. Prior to joining Campus Progress in 2007, he interned at The Washington Monthly, Talking Points Memo, and Time.com. Originally from suburban Boston, he is a 2006 graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he majored in philosophy and wrote a column for The Michigan Daily. His political writing and reporting have appeared in The Washington Monthly, Politico, The American Prospect online, and The Boston Globe. His feeble attempts at humor have been published in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Cracked.com, and Yankee Pot Roast.
Jessica Hillyard
Jessica resides in Washington, D.C., where she works in the non-profit sector to promote women’s issues. She hails from the San Francisco Bay Area, by way of suburban Minneapolis. Jessica studied political science and Spanish at the University of Minnesota, from which she graduated in 2006. Since then, she has spent time with various non-profits, government offices, and political campaigns. When not working or blogging, Jessica is usually either planning her next move or taking advantage of the abundant cultural and intellectual offerings of the nation’s capital.
Kay Steiger
Kay is an associate editor of CampusProgress.org. She is a former editorial assistant at The American Prospect and interned at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. Her work has appeared in those publications as well as in Bitch magazine. She graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2006, where she was editor-in-chief of the award-winning student magazine The Wake. Kay focuses on an array of feminist issues as well as veterans’ benefits. She has been known to hang out with an array of bloggers, liberal and otherwise, in Washington, D.C. Kay grew up in northern Minnesota, uncomfortably close to the Canadian border.
L. Russell Allen
Russell graduated from American University in 2005 with an interdisciplinary major focusing on communications, law, economics, and government. Formerly a seafood demo chef at his local Whole Foods, Russell now serves as a paralegal at a Washington, D.C.-based corporate law firm. Russell currently maintains two blogs focusing on his adopted hometown and on made-for-TV Lifetime movies. When not paralegaling, Russell can be found playing Rock Band, watching baseball, or cooking a peppered tuna steak in red wine and orange juice.
Lisha Arino
Lisha (pronounced LIE-sha) is a senior at Seton Hall University, where she is majoring in diplomacy and international relations. When not working on Pushback, she pretends to be a communications major, serves as web editor for Seton Hall's campus newspaper, The Setonian, and works as an investigative reporter for “The Global Current,” an independent, student-run, international news show on Seton Hall’s WSOU radio station. Born in New York City, Lisha was transplanted to the middle of suburbia at the age of five and has been plotting to move back ever since.
Loryn Wilson
Loryn is a native of Los Angeles, California. While attending The George Washington University, she founded the Black Women’s Forum, a discussion series for African-American female students. She is pursuing a career in media relations and has worked on media and communications campaigns for Microsoft, MGM MIRAGE, and the Service Employees International Union. Her personal blog, Black Girl Blogging, explores women and girls’ advocacy, black society and leadership, and the 2008 presidential election. Loryn is passionate about public service, women and girls’ advocacy, hip hop, and Womanism. A self–proclaimed foodie, Loryn loves to cook and to try new restaurants. She also enjoys music, art, basketball, and reading.
Matt Zeitlin
The youngest Pushback-er by a mere 18 days, Matt will be attending Northwestern University in the fall of 2008. Despite his youth, he's been addicted to the blogosphere for more than a year, and started his personal blog,whippersnapper.wordpress.com, in May 2007. Because of the blog, he's had the privilege of arguing with Susan Faludi at TPM Cafe, getting mocked by Mark Steyn, and being accused of "dancing a jig...on the bones of Iraqi children" by a pro-war British blogger. At Northwestern, he is planning to study philosophy. In an alternate universe, he would solely write about NBA basketball, football, and Bay Area hip hop. When not at school, he lives in Oakland, California.
Ned Resnikoff
Ned is an undergrad at NYU, studying Philosophy and Creative Writing. He was previously a communications intern for the Ned Lamont for Senate campaign in 2006, and a research intern at TPM Media. In addition to blogging at Pushback, he is the National editor of NYULocal.com and an occasional contributor to Cracked.com. His other interests include writing fiction, reading, noodling on his guitar, and getting lost in strange parts of Manhattan. He can't cook, but he can make a pretty mean sandwich.
Nick Sifuentes
Nick is a 2007 graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in political science with emphases in international relations and political philosophy. He currently works at a mid-size law firm in downtown Los Angeles. Aside from law, Nick has done volunteer work for two presidential campaigns as well as local volunteering on behalf of underrepresented groups. Aside from Pushback, Nick writes about the intersection of design and sociopolitical issues for d/visible, a design magazine. He has also written a novel, which he hopes to publish non-posthumously someday. While his secret goal is to be a full-time writer, he is studying law at Boston University in the meantime.
Rob Anderson
Rob is the editor of Pushback and CampusProgress.org. Before joining Campus Progress in 2007, Rob blogged for The Washington Post and worked as a reporter-researcher for The New Republic. He also interned for The American Prospect and served as the editor-in-chief of Georgetown University’s weekly newsmagazine, The Georgetown Voice. Rob graduated from Georgetown in 2005 with a degree in American and African American studies. (He wrote his senior thesis on Aunt Jemima's role at the World's Fair of 1893.) Rob grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, lives in Washington, D.C., and considers the Internet his home.
