Meet Us
Justin Cohen
Founder / Lead Organizer
Justin is founder and lead organizer of Dads for Kamala. He is a Brooklyn-based activist and author, working at the intersections of politics and movement building. His writing on social change has appeared in The New York Times, Guernica, Bklyner, Education Week, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Education Next, and HuffPost. His last book, Change Agents, tells stories about the transformative work of public school educators. He ran as an insurgent candidate in a 2020 New York Assembly primary, co-founded Wayfinder Foundation and served as president of education nonprofit Mass Insight Education. He has organized with Racial Justice BK, Get Organized Brooklyn, Equality 4 Flatbush, Bed-Stuy Strong, and No New Jails NYC. He is a founding board member of Friends of Abolitionist Place, which is in the planning stages of creating the country’s first heritage center dedicated to the study and advancement of radical liberation activism. He has been a writer in residence at the Carey Institute for the Global Good, a fellow of the Broad Academy, and an Organizer in Residence at Civic Hall. He served on the education policy committee for President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and holds a BA in cognitive science from Yale.
Mohan Sivaloganathan
National Storytelling Lead
Mohan is a keynote speaker, coach, and a “recovering CEO.” Above all, he is a proud father, husband, son, brother, friend, and a committed challenger to the status quo. Mohan earned the nickname of the “Batman of Social Impact,” as an executive leader by day and keynote speaker + hip-hop artist by night. Throughout his career, Mohan has supported local and national organizations in orchestrating sustainable transformation and systems change for education, civic engagement, racial equity, and social justice.
Brad Brown
National Volunteer Mobilization Lead
Brad Brown is, above all, a father to his daughter and two sons, and husband to Sarah Dodds-Brown. After studying computer science at Stanford and Cal-Berkeley and earning an MBA from Wharton, Brad spent decades building trading software for quants and traders. He was rising in senior technical leadership roles on Wall Street, including as managing director of global commodities trading technology at Goldman Sachs.
A few years ago, Brad took a different path. When COVID hit, he worked with the mayor’s office and a local university in a New York City suburb to start New Rochelle United, helping temporarily-shuttered, small businesses sell gift cards online. He also launched ‘Vote By Mail Coach,’ creating videos to assist the elderly in swing states with mail-in voting.
Next, while spending more time embracing fatherhood, Brad launched Learning Break Technology to shift kids from passive screen time to active learning. Brad recently completed a year of artificial intelligence coursework, including joining current Stanford grad students for months to more deeply learn AI’s mathematical underpinnings. Brad is currently applying this knowledge to the Learning Break context.
Alison Newell
National Volunteer Mobilization Lead
Not a dad, but brings dad vibes. Alison is a Massachusetts native living in New York. Over the last decade working in politics, advocacy and education, she has supported dozens of first-time candidates at all levels of government. She has a passion for field, community organizing, and working to mobilize communities in support of candidates and policy solutions.
Prior to founding Underdog in 2018, Alison worked with thousands of parents across New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Chicago to challenge their local and state representatives to address education inequities around funding, safety, and education access in their communities. In 2020 Alison also worked as Deputy Get Out the Vote Director for the Biden/Harris campaign in Wisconsin.
Peter Gaston
National Brand & Content Lead
Peter Gaston outgrew his rock’n’roll journalist lifestyle — eating his way thru Lollapalooza with Questlove, doing karaoke with Weezer, sipping champagne with Boy George on a dressing room toilet — and embraced a more stable career path in brand and creative strategy. He’s worked in-house at Spotify and at agencies on behalf of global brands like Nike, Kia, Bose, Amazon, Pepsi, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Capital One, and many more. Dads for Kamala is Peter’s first foray into the political space, and he’s doing it for his wife and son, with whom he thrives in Brooklyn, NY.
Todd Drezner
National Storytelling Lead
Todd Drezner is a documentary filmmaker whose work has screened on PBS, various cable networks, in theatrical release, and at the United Nations for World Autism Awareness Day. When he’s not making documentaries, Todd produces videos for some of the country’s largest companies and organizations. Before producing video for Dads for Kamala, Todd worked with Indivisible to create a series of videos about the importance of calling your Congressional representatives. Todd is the proud dad of a 20-year old autistic son. He lives with his wife and son in Brooklyn, NY.
John Miller
National Tech Lead
John, a Maryland native, is a software engineer now living in Seattle with his wife and son. He has over 35 years of experience innovating and solving problems at both small startups and massive-scale corporations. In the Venn diagram of Democratic activism, John sits at the intersection of Dads for Kamala, Board Gamers for Kamala, and Mediocre Guitar Players for Kamala. He aims to be lazy, impatient, and hubristic when dealing with computers and the opposite of those when dealing with people.
Jason R. Totten
National Tech Lead
Jason is a software architect and creative problem solver based in Indianapolis, IN. A father of three, husband, and wrangler to a rescue pup named Nia. He is always eager to learn and grow, finding time to do so whenever he can. Passionate about getting things done effectively and efficiently, he’s also an armchair sociologist coupled with a strong anti-bully streak – he’s here to fight classism and its ugly children of racism, bigotry, and the rest.
Dwayne Andrews
Policy Advisor
Dwayne Andrews is a husband, father, son, brother and “big homie” that is excited to help elect Kamala Harris to be President of the United States. He has worked for more than two decades as a lawyer and government relations professional, effectively advocating for clients in New York and Washington, DC by building on his experiences as a Congressional aide, attorney, and strategist.
Dwayne is a life-long resident of Queens, NY, one of the most diverse counties in the country. He believes in serving his community and sits on the Board of Trustees of New York City Outward Bound Schools, the Greater Allen Development Corporation and the Metropolitan Black Bar Association.
Chris Gibbons
Policy Advisor
Chris Gibbons has spent his last 25 years focused on educational equity, through his current foundation role, as a network leader, and as a classroom teacher.
Chris was the founder and CEO for 16 years of STRIVE Prep, a network of public charter schools that prepares low-income students for college success.
He taught high school science, led summer nonprofit programs, and has participated in multiple national fellowships. Dads 4 Kamala is his first formal political activity after a lifetime of advocacy.
He is happily married to Audra Philippon, also a charter school founder, and they are proudly raising two daughters.
Chris Henjum
Minnesota Lead
Chris is an attorney and policy guy focused on community-focused tax and finance issues. He lives in Minneapolis, where he and his wife Nicole do their best to keep up with their three young girls. Chris has led various lefty and civic groups in the area for over a decade, including leading the Minnesota chapter of the American Constitution Society and launching a “Draft Walz” campaign for governor in 2017. In the wake of the George Floyd tragedy, Chris helped co-found the Southwest Alliance for Equity, which connects neighbors and influences local city policy.
Mark Linton
Lead Organizer, Men for Harris
Mark is a CoFounder of Men for Harris and brings nearly 25 years of leadership experience in public affairs and strategic communications. He served as an aide to then-Senator Barack Obama in Washington, DC, as a constituency organizing lead on the 2008 campaign, and as a senior appointee in the Obama-Biden administration. Mark has worked with purpose driven leaders in Fortune 500s; national, state, and local politics; and leading advocacy movements to help them win on their top causes.
Mark is a proud husband and father of three amazing kids and two very bad dogs. His dream: taking them to watch Kamala Harris be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.
