Staff + Board

Aaron grew up in West Virginia where he became deeply involved in grassroots organizing. Inspired by his grandfather, who was a public school teacher of more than 30 years, he ran for the Board of Education in his home county at the age of 21. Despite losing, he began working for the Working Families Party in West Virginia to help get others elected. Aaron believes strongly in the importance of organizing in small cities and rural communities and is excited to help amplify the voices and voting power of young people throughout Colorado’s Western Slope.

When not working, Aaron enjoys being outdoors, watching Ted Lasso or The Mandalorian, and telling anyone who will listen that he owns a share of the publicly-owned Green Bay Packers.

As a devout believer in astrology, Arianna attributes all of her success to being born at 4:23 PM in Ventura County on a beautiful January day. In truth, her success is a combination of her passion to give back to her community and a deep commitment to make her Mama proud. While attending Metropolitan State University, she joined the 2018 Colorado Latino Leadership Advocacy and Research Organization (CLLARO) fellowship and researched the impacts of health and education policies on Latinx lives in Colorado. After graduating magna cum laude as a first generation student with a degree in Chicano Studies, she joined New Era Colorado in 2019.

When she first joined the team, Arianna supported the leadership development of abortion advocates into activists in the reproductive freedom movement through The Brazen Project. She then became policy manager, where she held leaders accountable to the Youth Agenda and drove New Era’s issue campaigns with the policy team.

As our new organizing director, Arianna brings years of institutional knowledge to the table and is excited to continue supporting organizers on the ground while building out New Era’s new regional program. Outside of work, she spends her time reluctantly going on walks with her girlfriend and giving her cat the silent treatment.

Born and raised in mid-city Los Angeles, Camila came to Colorado in 2013 to attend the University of Denver. Many jobs — including a preschool teacher and food writer — later, she became New Era Colorado’s communications director in 2022. With experience in conservation, fiscal reform, health equity, and local political spaces, Camila brings a multidimensional perspective to progressive communications and advocacy.

Influenced by her Mexican-American family’s commitment to creating change and connecting through food, you can often find her making a mess in the kitchen, reading, ranting, and dreaming of days at the beach or starry nights in the Sonoran desert.

Christina got her start in progressive politics in Michigan, where she grew up. After she graduated from the University of Michigan with her bachelor’s degree in sociology and women and gender studies, Christina began canvassing with Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan. As a canvasser, Christina realized that she loved all the data and details that go into building campaigns, and that sparked an interest that influenced her entire career.

Ten years, a move to Colorado, and a few advocacy jobs later, Christina is still passionate about making sure that people, especially young people and people of color, take their powers and use them to create the world they want to see through relationship building and organizing. In her free time, you can catch Christina hanging out with her sweet baby, two kitties, and partner; enjoying outdoor patios with her friends; or, browsing her cookbooks for new recipes to test out!

Jorge Hernandez is a first-generation student studying political science at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. Jorge is committed to advancing equity and advocating for justice. He prioritizes serving and empowering young students of color, especially Spanish-speaking communities, through community organizing and transformative justice. Those values and experiences remain with him today and they continue to fuel his passion for creating change.

In his free time, Jorge enjoys skiing during the winter season and watching the sunset at the Mile High Stadium as he roots for the three-time Super Bowl champions, the Denver Broncos, during the fall.

As a strong supporter of the power of people and communities, Kate is driven to invest herself in the work necessary for social change. Graduating from CU Boulder in 2021, with a bachelor’s degree in political science and women & gender studies, she is very thankful for the opportunities she’s had and the relationships she built along the way. With previous experience in student groups and nonprofits, Kate found her passion for advocacy and organizing with people and community members. She gives credit to those environments she got to be a part of as a large motivator for her passions today.

Kim is the daughter of two strong Panamanian immigrants who came to the United States in 1999. Raised in southern Colorado, she has always fought for the issues affecting those with historically marginalized identities, accrediting her parents and culture as the biggest reasons for her strong advocacy.

She received her bachelor’s degrees in political science and international studies in the spring of 2023 (yay!) at Colorado State University; during her time at CSU, she fought to have Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) heard and represented throughout the Fort Collins community. In 2022, Kim became the speaker pro tempore at Colorado State through the Associated Students of Colorado State University (ASCSU). There, she secured funding to create a heavily-needed immigrant services coordinator position to address the needs of immigrant students with a diverse range of identities. She looks forward to making the voices of young folks in northern Colorado stronger than ever before!

Originally from a tiny town in southeastern Michigan, Kylie relocated to Denver to work with New Era as a Development Manager. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2022, where she studied public policy with a concentration in social justice and inequities in policy. Her education and the influence of relationships built along the way catalyzed her into pursuing a career that centers young voices and progressive policy issues.

Outside of work, Kylie loves any and all things outdoors, cooking yummy vegan food, and visiting every single coffee shop in any city she visits. She also spends as much time as possible trying to show and tell pictures of her beloved cat, Frankie.

At New Era, Marcel leads our fundraising efforts by building lasting relationships with donors and connecting the goals and successes of our programs to our donor community. He aims to continue building a base of financial supporters who prioritize equity in their giving.

Before joining New Era, Marcel worked to strengthen Texas’ progressive infrastructure at the Texas Future Project. In typical Texan-to-Coloradan fashion, Marcel loves to remind everyone of his roots. A very short list of Houston legends includes: Beyonce & Solange, Lizzo, Chandra Wilson, and Jalen Hurts. In his free time, you can find Marcel browsing Zillow for industrial/eclectic design ideas, listening to Black artists (old and new), and maintaining the Clash of Clans base he has kept for 8 years. He’s a big fan of kolaches and believes HEB is the elite grocery store.

Molly likes to imagine a country in which every single election has 100% voter turnout and voting is as accessible as filling out a Google Form (and ballot language as understandable as “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”). Born and raised in DeKalb, Illinois, Molly worked in the cornfields for her first job before working at a local news station while attending the University of Missouri. After nearly five years in broadcast news, Molly pitched an investigative story about the lack of reproductive healthcare access in Missouri and what would happen if Roe v. Wade was overturned. When her story was deemed irrelevant, Molly took the eventual Supreme Court’s ruling as a signal that it was time to turn back to her activist roots.

Once she spent time as a legislative aide in the Colorado Senate, she got her next signal seeing New Era hustle at the legislature. She is excited and proud to drive digital communications for an organization that prioritizes equitable, anti-racist policies that will reshape America’s failing democracy.

For as long as she can remember, Nicole has been driven to create a more just and fair world. Before New Era, she spent over eight years working in the field of youth empowerment and education policy. Nicole first moved to Colorado in 2012 as a bilingual kindergarten teacher in Montbello, right when the “Frozen” craze swept kindergarten classrooms across the nation (yes – she knows all the words to “Let it Go”). After teaching, Nicole received her Master’s in Public Policy and Master’s in Education Leadership at Stanford where she geeked out over social psychology, social contract theory, and systems-change. At Stanford, she co-founded an organization called REENVISIONED, a national movement to redefine the purpose of school, where she learned how to unite and mobilize students, teachers, parents, and community members around a shared vision for change.

After moving back to Denver, Nicole continued to work in education – both at Denver Public Schools and a national nonprofit, The Future Project. However, she found that many of the problems she was seeking to solve in education were symptoms of larger societal issues that could only be solved by democracy. Nicole decided to bring her expertise in youth empowerment and deep commitment to social justice to New Era in 2019 as our Executive Director.

Nicole strongly identifies as a Gryffindor, has a dog named Tonks, and owns a staple Hermione costume for whenever the moment is right. She is happiest when she is making Lebanese food (ask for her family hummus recipe) and adventuring outdoors.

Tash believes that truly anti-racist policies are grounded in people’s needs. Her work as the political director is deeply rooted in coalition building, collaboration, and listening. A lot of the time that means getting out of the office and talking to people! Additionally, she is responsible for overseeing our issue campaigns and accountability work — including New Era’s legislative session program, issue campaigns, and c4 electoral targeting.

Backed by a degree in History from CU-Boulder and a Master’s in public policy from the University of Denver, Tash came to New Era from Denver Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca’s office. In her previous roles, she’s worked on environmental justice, criminal justice, fiscal, and regulatory policies. 

Tash is re-learning what it means to have spare time after finishing graduate school and is most exited to catch up on living. 

Trish has been with New Era since January 2022 but she’s had a passion for reproductive rights and abortion access since high school. This passion drove her to be active in student organizing around reproductive rights and voter registration during her undergrad in San Diego. She is particularly proud of her involvement in the passage of California Senate Bill 24, which ensures all California public university students have access to abortion pills in their campus medical centers.

Trish is currently working on her master’s in American political history at CU Denver (don’t ask about her thesis). She is a passionate believer in the power of radical imagination and community, both of which propel her to stay optimistic in this work, as do her cats who are very good boys.