Matt Haney, Executive Director
Contact Matt at 510-834-8272 or ed@ucsa.org
As Executive Director, Matt delegates, supervises and coordinates the work of staff, and helps to coordinate the work of the Board to ensure implementation of UCSA campaigns and board actions.
A Bay Area native, Matt has a BA from UC Berkeley in Political Science and Urban Development (ISF) with a Minor in African-American Studies. He also has a JD from Stanford Law School and an MA in Education from Stanford University School of Education, and received an LLM (Masters in Law) in International Human Rights from the National University of Ireland Galway, where he was a Senator George Mitchell Scholar. Matt is the co-founder and Chair of Citizen Hope, an organization that empowers people to bring about change through community service and political activism. Before law school, Matt worked as a California State Senate Fellow and Legislative Aide for State Senator Joe Simitian, serving on the Senator's education legislative team. He was also the lead staffer for Simitian's higher-education policy, "hands free" cellphone law, and a landmark consumer protection law relating to reverse mortgages. While in law school, Matt was a community and youth organizer for Obama for America, serving as the Northern California Student Field Director, the New Mexico Youth Vote Director, the Stanford Students for Obama Campus Director, and a Field Organizer in Texas. After Obama's election, Matt went to DC to work as a Summer Associate in the Office of the White House Counsel where he worked on Justice Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court and the hospital visitation rights of same sex couples.
Matt currently serves on the Campaign for College Opportunity Advisory Board, the Glide Legacy Board, Bay Area Benefit Board of Directors, the Opportunity Impact Advisory Board, the San Francisco Unified School District Public Education Enrichment Fund Community Advisory Committee, the California Democratic Party Central Committee, Music Mural and Arts Program Board of Advisers, Greenlining Institute's Ballot Initiative Reform Advisory Committee, and previously served on the Education Transition Team for California Attorney General Kamala Harris, and the San Francisco Unified School District Restorative Justice Taskforce. Matt has also worked at College Track, the Greenlining Institute, the Museum of Tolerance, Morrison Foerster law firm, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Repair California, American Academy of Pediatrics and the War Crimes Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina.