Hema Sareen Mohan has worked for almost 20 years in the nonprofit and public sectors. For the past 10 years, she worked with former California State Senator and current Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian. Her key policy areas were education and juvenile justice reform. While in the State Senate, she worked on the landmark state legislation to change the kindergarten entry age and create a new grade known as transitional kindergarten in California public schools. Hema's nonprofit experience includes seven years at the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York-based nonprofit policy and research organization, where she created and directed a positive behavior support program for school-based police officers to use with students, and worked on an alternative-to-detention program for immigrants facing deportation. She serves on the board of the Phillips Brooks School. Hema graduated with a BA in political science from Hunter College and an MPA from Columbia University. A native New Yorker, she has lived on the Peninsula for the past 10 years. She lives with her husband and three children.