About Us: Our Team

Originally from southern New Jersey, Marie has lived in Bucks County for quite some time. A former volunteer trainer at St. Mary Medical Center, Marie’s work in politics dates back to 2016 when she started as a phone bank and canvassing volunteer, famously spending 12 hours in a field office in Bristol, PA with a dozen pizzas and two dozen New Yorkers. Since then she has worked on the 2020 presidential election, texting and social media in 2021, the 2022 midterms where she worked in both the field and digitally, and is still going to the point where she forgot what sleep is. Aside from this, she is a social media whiz who has worked with several state and national campaigns, a phone bank trainer, and the lead for social media for Join The Union PA. Marie has a BA in Communication from Rider University and has been known to dabble in video production and writing. She’s also shocked people not only with what she knows about media and politics but also how she's lived in PA for a while and still speaks with a New Jersey accent.

Romario brings a rich background in political activism and distributed organizing. For nearly a decade, he has worked to hold state and national leaders accountable on key progressive issues, including Climate Change, Racial Justice, healthcare, immigration reform, and labor rights.

Chris is the Executive Director of Save Democracy Now. Chris is also the original co-founder, along with Jenn Whyms. As a past "Supervolunteer Leader" for a major statewide coordinated campaign in Pennsylvania during the years 2020, 2021, and 2022, Dr. Chris (Christopher) Kavanau played a crucial volunteer role in helping run a majority of the statewide, large-scale virtual phone banks for the Pennsylvania 2022 Midterm election. This digital operation spanned from December 1, 2021, to Election Day on November 8, 2022. Joining the campaign in November 2021 after an introduction by the statewide Coordinated Campaign Manager to the Digital Director, Chris, as a volunteer, helped lead, train, and debrief the teams of phonebankers that made 3.37 million GOTV calls between October 11, 2022, and Election Day, including over 713,294 calls on Election Day itself! Chris also helped, as a Supervolunteer Leader, on most of the of the State-Wide text banks as a Lead Trainer and Greeter, as well as one of only a small handful of "Sweepers" and was asked by Staff to help mentor new Sweepers. Chris played a similar role, in the above described activities, for a 2022 Pennsylvania Senatorial campaign. Mr. Romario Brown, Chris' supervisor and VSL Director (VSLD) on these record Midterm breaking state-wide phone banks, is also a co-founder of SDN. This historic effort, for a PA midterm election, also included Co-Leaders Jenn Whyms, Evan Lish, and Dr. Mehdi Sarram, all of whom, alongside Chris, are also members of our Team. Chris and Jenn Whyms subsequently led an important nonpartisan large-scale virtual phone banking operation in Georgia, focusing on voter mobilization for the runoff election, in November/December 2022 with Reaching Care, a nonprofit & nonpartisan organization. Chris, in his “regular work," is a computational neuroscientist with a specialty in machine learning, molecular imaging and visual neuroscience. His research focuses on applying machine learning and artificial neural networks to both 3D electron microscopy image analysis and the analysis of the complex mixtures of signals found in the brain. Chris holds five (5) U.S. patents on technology concerning his research. Further, Chris invented, developed and built emergency hospital ventilator systems in coordination a local hospital system during the early days of the pandemic. Chris is the acting (and re-elected) Vice President of the local university Union representing faculty, and also serves as its nonpartisan Legislative Chair.

A military veteran (Army and Navy) of ten years, Evan Lish is a humanitarian project developer and small business owner, and he has been actively working in South America to assist with the Venezuelan Refugee crisis since 2019. Evan believes that every person has a right to their basic necessities as specifically outlined by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Evan respects every person’s dignity to live life to their fullest self-actualization, and he actively works to remove any and all barriers preventing honest citizens from realizing their full potential within society.

Debra Ragan-Coffman lives in a cozy home with her husband of 45 years and a small, white fluffy dog. She retired from her career as a licensed clinical psychotherapist after 40 extremely meaningful years. She spends several days a week happily caring for her 2-year old grandson while his parents are at work. She brings to this work her knowledge and understanding of human behavior and motivation. She is a passionate advocate for young children, paternal-infant bonding, health and mental health care, education, and early intervention. She became a volunteer with SaveDemNow.org because she is deeply committed to doing all that she can to help this planet become a healthy, peaceful, and viable home for all of the people, plants, and animals that inhabit it.

Since Nov 9, 2016, Keith Richmond has been helping in campaigns by phone banking, texting, postcarding, and extensively using social media and holding events to train and involve more activists. He is also a volunteer for National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which Pennsylvania needs to pass into law so that the president will be the candidate with the most votes nationally! In 2022, Keith volunteered to help train textbankers for Pennsylvania and also phone banks. He similarly worked with state party campaigns in Arizona, Wisconsin, and individual candidates in Georgia elsewhere. Keith holds a Bachelors in Science in Business from University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard. He has worked in finance and accounting including 16 years in Japan.

John Santana is a graduate student at East Stroudsburg University working to earn his master's degree in Political Science. His political experiences range from working on numerous election campaigns (local, state, and federal) to interning in governmental offices to volunteer activism with non-profit organizations like Make The Road. His passion for politics lies in his belief in humanity's innate drive for community and that the people have the power to enact positive changes to society.

Dr. Mehdi Sarram is a Nuclear Engineer, receiving his post graduate degree from the University of Michigan in 1967. He obtained his U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Senior Reactor Operator Licenses in 1965 and has over 60 years nuclear experience. This includes working for International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards in Vienna. He has traveled to 38 countries, 20 with major nuclear programs, and has worked in 9 of them. Since 1982, Dr. Sarram worked for the U.S. nuclear industry, Raytheon Nuclear, and AREVA NP. Since 2008, he has been an independent consultant, working for several companies including URS Corporation, as a senior advisor for the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) in South Korea for one year. He has presented/published over 50 scientific papers at conferences and/or in technical journals on nuclear related topics. In May 2023, he received a Certificate from the national American Nuclear Society (ANS) for his 60-year contribution to the nuclear industry and being a member of the ANS for 60 years. In 2015, he published a book entitled Nuclear Lies, Deceptions and Hypocrisies, highlighting the lies and deceptions of seven countries in the past 60 years. He has made numerous presentations at WAC-NCC, SDSU, UConn, East Stroudsburg University, UC Berkeley, and the University of Michigan on JCPOA and climate change.

Bringing an eclectic array of nonprofit experience in fields including event planning, graphic design, and program management, Jenn Whyms is fairly new to the political sector but has gained key experience in recent years. She was a frequent phonebanker for a major statewide campaign in 2020 and 2022, and joined the volunteer leadership team at the invitation of SDN's own Chris Kavanau in the fall of 2022. A lifelong progressive, she is passionate about reproductive freedom, climate change, and healthcare reform. She lives in Baltimore, MD with her husband and cats.