Emily Tisch Sussman

Emily Tisch Sussman is the Campaign Director for the Center for American Progress Action Fund, where she is responsible for working with policy teams and coalition partners to create and execute campaigns that turn policy ideas into laws. Before joining American Progress, she was the executive director of Young Democrats of America, where she led a team that helped to produce record-breaking youth participation in the 2012 election cycle. Prior to that, Emily served as co-director of government affairs for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, or SLDN, where she was a key figure in the movement to repeal the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” She worked on national strategy for repeal and lobbied and served as liaison to the Pentagon. Before joining SLDN, she founded Think Blue, a political organization for young professional Democrats. Emily holds membership with the New York Bar and earned her J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she graduated with cum laude honors and specialized in constitutional and matrimonial law. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from Skidmore College, where she concentrated in developmental disabilities. She was honored with the Cardozo Law Gates Award, with the award for Extraordinary Contribution toward Advancing the Truman Democratic World View from the Truman National Security Project, and on the inaugural list of “40 under 40 Emerging Leaders in Politics” by the New Leaders Council.