Neal Ubriani

Neal helps states and local jurisdictions research, develop, and implement policy solutions to make government more efficient, accessible, and responsive. Prior to his policy work, Neal was a voting rights litigator at the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division under both the Obama and Trump administrations. Neal is a native of New York, and a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School.

Sam Oliker-Friedland

Sam Oliker-Friedland is the Executive Director of the Institute for Responsive Government. Previously, he was a voting rights litigator at the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division under both the Obama and Trump administrations. Prior to that, he worked on election administration law and data in the nonprofit sector. Sam graduated from Brown University with a degree in Linguistics and has a J.D. from Yale Law School. He’s a Milwaukee native and lives in Chicago, IL.

Sarah Gonski

Sarah is an election law attorney and policy expert. She helps states and local jurisdictions design and implement policy solutions to make government more efficient, accessible, and responsive. She teaches Election Law at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Prior to her policy work, Sarah spent seven years as a voting rights litigator in private practice. Sarah lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School.

John Lindback

John Lindback first entered the field of elections administration in 1995 and has made it his personal goal for the past 27 years to make voter registration and voting work better for both voters and elections officials. John served from 2014 to 2017 as the Executive Director of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), the consortium of states using state-of-the-art technology to improve the accuracy of their voter registration rolls and improve access to voter registration for US citizens Prior to joining ERIC, he served as a Senior Officer for Election Initiatives at the Pew Charitable Trusts, providing key leadership on Pew’s portfolio of work in election administration, including a Pew project that assisted with the creation of ERIC. Prior to joining Pew, Lindback worked for 14 years in state elections administration. He served for eight years as Director of Elections in the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office. During his tenure with the Oregon Secretary of State he was elected president in 2008 of the National Association of State Elections Directors. He was also elected to serve on the executive board of the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission’s Standards Advisory Board. Prior to his work in Oregon, John worked as chief of staff to the lieutenant governor of Alaska for six years, which included administrative oversight of the Alaska Division of Elections. In addition, he served on a National Academy of Sciences panel that studied state voter registration databases. John volunteered as an advisor to Design for Democracy, an organization that assisted elections officials with designing voter-friendly ballots and other elections materials. He has also served as a volunteer international elections observer for the US State Department. He observed elections in Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kyrgyzstan, and the Republic of Georgia. Lindback holds a B.A. degree in journalism (1976) from the University of Arizona.

Ashish Sinha

Ashish directs a national Implementation Working Group of technical assistance experts who assist states in the implementation of new election and voter registration policies. Previously, he worked in philanthropy for several years to strengthen philanthropic investment in civic engagement across the country. Ashish is a Maryland native and earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois.

Alex Tischenko

Alex is an election law attorney and policy expert. He helps states and local jurisdictions design and implement policy solutions to make government more efficient, accessible, and responsive. Prior to joining IRG, Alex was a voting rights litigator at the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division under both the Obama and Trump administrations and practiced election law in private practice. Alex lives in Washington, DC, and is a graduate of Pomona College, Stanford Law School, and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Shamus Hannan

With over a decade developing and implementing technology solutions in both the Elections and DMV realms, Shamus brings a unique and diverse frame of reference with him to the CDER team.  His background includes Enterprise Project Management and Application Development Management roles for both; the Oregon Secretary of State and the Oregon DMV.  Shamus was the Project Director for Oregon’s pioneering Automatic Voter Registration program which went live in 2016 and remains a model for such programs today. With over 30 years in state government, and over 20 years in technology, Shamus brings a wealth of experience and perspective in understanding and creatively addressing the challenges and opportunities Elections and DMV officials face today.