MEET OUR TEAM
Cat Town’s Board and staff have experience spanning a broad array of disciplines. In addition to the core team, we rely heavily on our dedicated volunteers and receive advice from a variety of outside advisers to help us develop best practices that can be replicated at a national level.
OUR Board of Directors
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David is a Principal at Arcview Consulting, a cannabis management consultancy. A passionate advocate for social justice and cannabis reform, he’s worked in the cannabis industry since 2009. David teaches Economics of Cannabis at Oaksterdam University, and co-owns a miniature golf company, Subpar Mini Golf.
In addition to his service on Cat Town’s Board of Directors, David serves on the Boards of the Marijuana Policy Project, Oaksterdam University, The Arcview Group, and is a Trustee for Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley, a French American bilingual school in Berkeley. David enjoys learning, solving puzzles, science fiction, and exploring the world. He and his partner Molly live in Oakland.
Photo by Shelly Waldman
President
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During her 26 years as a professional dancer, Devon performed with numerous companies throughout California — including Oakland Ballet, Moving Arts Dance Company, Menlowe Ballet, and Caminos Flamencos. She's been passionate about animal welfare her whole life and has volunteered extensively with local rescues since childhood. Devon deepened her knowledge of companion animals, while gaining invaluable experience, working as a veterinary assistant at Sexton Clinic in Alamo, California for more than 5 years. Currently, she serves as CFO/Secretary of The La Russa Family Foundation, which provides financial assistance to nonprofit organizations that work in areas of animal rescue and welfare.
Devon and her husband Ryan share their home with their family of cats, dogs, rabbits, and fish. Together, they have fostered more than 100 dogs and cats to date! She's a proud "cat lady" through and through.
Photo by Shelly Waldman
Vice President
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With almost 20 years of animal welfare experience, Willow was a founding member of the Cat Town Board and of the Board for Friends of Oakland Animal Services. As part of the volunteer cat crew at Oakland Animal Services, she has a deep understanding of the cats who rely on Cat Town. Willow also brings more than a decade of operations and systems management experience to Cat Town.
Willow has called Oakland home for most of her life. When she’s not playing volleyball, she’s snuggled up with her cats watching a good movie.
Photo by Shelly Waldman
SECRETARY
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Jamie is a supervising attorney with the Antitrust Section of the California Department of Justice in San Francisco. Since 2011, she has prosecuted antitrust matters on behalf of consumers, guiding complex litigation and investigations, shaping public policy. Her work focuses on emerging legal issues in antitrust, leading cross-agency collaboration, mentoring legal teams, and managing complex, multi-party regulatory efforts to support solutions for California consumers.
Jamie currently resides in Los Gatos, but grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She loves Broadway shows, listening to podcasts, French food, and all things Christmas.
TREASURER
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Nara grew up in Oakland in a family deeply involved in East Bay politics. She has served as Councilmember Linda Maio’s appointee to the Berkeley Commission on the Status of Women, as well as the Anti Trafficking Task Force, and was Mayor Bates’ appointee to the Animal Care Commission. She has also worked on, managed, and ran campaigns for ballot measures and candidates in Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco. Currently Nara is Vice President of the government affairs firm, Milo Group of California, and prior to that was an External Affairs Manager and Research Analyst at the San Francisco Committee on Jobs.
Photo by Shelly Waldman
Director
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Salvador (she/they/he) brings a unique blend of creativity, advocacy, and compassion to Cat Town’s Board of Directors. With over 20 years of experience in art and education and more than 5 years in case management, they currently serve as a Case Manager and Senior Paralegal at the LGBT Asylum Project at the Center for Immigrant Protection in San Francisco. They hold a BFA in Printmaking and a BA in Art Education, blending their artistic background with their commitment to social justice.
Originally from Los Angeles County (Pico Rivera and Whittier), Salvador has always been drawn to creativity and care — once aspiring to be a veterinarian before finding their calling in art and advocacy. Outside of work, they enjoy crocheting, knitting, video games, swimming, board games, and making art. An avid lover of horror and dark comedy films, their favorite movies include A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors and Welcome to the Dollhouse.
Salvador shares their life with their husband, Amerigo, and their beloved cats, Fibonacci (a grey-striped tabby) and Frida (a black medium-hair beauty). They admire cats for their fierce independence and affection — qualities they strive to embody in their own life and work.
Photo by Nicole Dial.
Director
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Through her professional experience as a UX designer and former business owner, as well as through her contributions to animal welfare organizations since 2007, Stefanie understands the challenges of running a nonprofit organization. Being able to wear many hats and to work under resource constraints is necessary in both the startup world and nonprofits. Empathy is key. A strong team is the foundation for success.
An animal advocate at heart, Stefanie has been involved with a variety of animal welfare organizations. In addition to her service on Cat Town’s Board of Directors, she serves as the Board Chair for WildCat Ridge Sanctuary and does pro bono work — including photography, online communications, graphic design, and more — for a number of animal sanctuaries across the US.
Stefanie grew up in Germany, and while she loves all animals, she admits to a special adoration of cats, both domestic and wild. Stefanie lives in beautiful Lake Oswego with her partner, Michael, and their rescue cats.
Photo by Shelly Waldman
Director
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Wendy lectures at UC Berkeley. Her academic research has centered on the question of how citizens can – and cannot – organize effectively for political change. Before teaching at Cal, she spent much of her life immersed in, and fascinated by, the potential and limitations of collective action — from the time she lived through the congressional coup in Ecuador in the 1990s, to accompanying the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil, to understanding how small nonprofits in Rio de Janeiro navigate corrupt politicians and drug trafficking gangs to make life better for favela residents.
Wendy holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from UC-Berkeley, a M.A in International Policy Studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and a B.A. in Sociology and Women’s Studies from Mercer University. She travelled around the world for nearly three years before working in San Francisco’s tech industry during the first dot-com boom. Wendy is a fan of international travel, extreme cake baking, chess gambits, science fiction in all forms, and (naturally) cats.
Photo by Teresa Wood.
Director
OUR STAFF
LEADERSHIP
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Andrew Dorman brings two decades of leadership experience managing complex, high-value projects in the energy industry to his work in animal welfare. A registered electrical engineer with a BS in Electrical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University, he spent nearly 20 years designing and executing large-scale infrastructure projects before transitioning full-time into nonprofit leadership.
Andrew began volunteering at Oakland Animal Services in 2014, where he helped launch the shelter’s working cat program. From that beginning, his involvement in the local animal welfare community expanded through leadership roles with Friends of Oakland Animal Services and Cat Town, where he served on the leadership team for two years before becoming Executive Director in January 2020.
Under Andrew’s leadership, Cat Town has expanded its impact significantly, helping thousands of at-risk cats through innovative foster, adoption, medical, and behavior programs while strengthening partnerships across the Bay Area animal welfare community. His work has focused on organizational growth, operational improvement, strategic planning, fundraising, and advancing Cat Town’s mission to create better outcomes for cats who are often overlooked in traditional shelter settings.
Originally from Canada and raised in San Luis Obispo, Andrew enjoys kayaking, photography, and hiking — preferably somewhere without poison oak. He lives in Oakland with his partner, Katrina, and their cats, Sinatra and Coraline. Together, they have fostered more than 135 cats and kittens (and counting).
Executive Director
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Dilara grew up in Istanbul, Turkey and holds degrees in Psychology and in Comparative Literature from Oberlin College. She is a Certified Cat Behavior Consultant and has worked with animals since 1991.
In her career, Dilara observed that cats with behavioral challenges were considered “untreatable” and “unadoptable” in the rescue world, and realized that by supporting these cats, she could fill an unmet need to help pets and families thrive together. She co-founded Feline Minds as a result, and was later drawn to Cat Town’s mission to help cats who struggle in a cage.
Since 2011, she has advised Cat Town on individual cat behavior plans, our cage-free Adoption Center, the Forgotten Kitten Project, and more. Now, as Program Director, Dilara is excited to shepherd shelter cats in need along on their journey to adoption.Dilara shares her life in Richmond with her family of humans, dogs, cats, and chickens. When she is not helping cats live their best lives, she can be found pursuing a multitude of hobbies, including drawing, playing piano, cooking, and exploring the Bay Area’s hiking trails with her dogs.
Photo by Shelly Waldman
Program DIRECTOR
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Quinn grew up with cats, dogs, rats, and a bird, but in the end, cats won her heart. She began volunteering with Cat Town in 2014 as an adoption counselor, foster, and fundraiser. She joined as staff in 2018.
As Cat Town's Development Director and Deputy Director, Quinn draws on more than a decade of fundraising and communications experience with donor stewardship, grant funding, and corporate sponsorship to support Cat Town’s mission. She has a soft spot for Cat Town's "In It for Life" program, which helps hospice shelter cats, loves sharing stories about Cat Town’s mission, and can often be found guiltily over-using em dashes, despite the many other punctuation options out there.
Quinn holds an MS in Environmental Management, loves the smell of a salt marsh, tries hard not to hate raisins, and her motto is “it’s a good day when you learn something new.” She also enjoys tabletop games and reading when she and her partner, Chad, aren't snuggling their two Cat Town cats, Phoenix and Peanut.
Photo by Nicole Dial
Development & Deputy Director
MEET THE TEAM
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Belle grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and started volunteering at a cat rescue with friends at just 11 years old. Since then, they’ve had the joy of rescuing and caring for all kinds of animals — from pot-bellied pigs at farm sanctuaries to sea turtles in marine hospitals to Syrian hamsters saved from lab testing.
They hold a B.A. in Anthropology and partially completed a Master’s in Visual Anthropology (which absolutely counts!), giving them a strong foundation for understanding rescue work and the complexities of the cat overpopulation crisis.
In 2022, Belle traded Charlottesville, Virginia, for Oakland and has fallen in love with the community, the abundant vegan food, and the blessed lack of humidity in the Bay Area. When not caring for Cat Town’s cats, you can find them window-shopping for plants they don’t have space for, building shelters for community cats, or out on Pigeon Patrol, helping feral pigeons with stringfoot.
Through their work coordinating medical care for Cat Town cats, Belle discovered a passion for veterinary science. Now, they’re chipping away at prerequisites for vet school — despite their humanities degree leaving them wildly underprepared!
Photo by Shelly Waldman
CAT CARE Coordinator
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Bio coming soon!
Photo by Grace Fujii
OPERATIONS MANAGER
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Adam was born outside of Washington DC, and the iteration of him that existed there would be astonished to learn that he currently works a job where he takes care of cats. He was not raised with proper exposure to cats, and was actually quite wary of them until, at the age of 20, he moved into a house with one and fell in love. Since then, he has been making up for lost time.
Adam has been active for the past 15 years throughout the Bay Area operating as a sustainability consultant, helping businesses and local governments reduce their trash footprint. In addition to cats and environmentalism, Adam is a dedicated audio and visual artist and is currently establishing himself as a sound designer.
Photo by Nicole Dial
Cat Care Attendant
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Born in a small town, serendipitously bordering Los Gatos, California, Suzanne is a lifelong Bay Area resident. As a child, she was adamant she wanted to be a cat when she grew up, but much to her chagrin, this failed to materialize. So instead, she attended San Jose State and spent the ensuing years working as a corporate trainer and restaurant manager in a variety of fine dining establishments.
In 2005, inspired after a trip to the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary in Rome, Suzanne began volunteering at the San Francisco SPCA, working with under-socialized and medically compromised cats. When the organization wanted to shift to a more client-centered adoption approach, she was brought on as staff and spent over a decade heading Adoptions, first as manager, then director, where she collaborated closely with Shelter Medicine, Behavior, and Volunteer Services. Suzanne continued volunteering by fostering a series of hospice cats in her home.
While cats are her main passion, Suzanne also enjoys photography, visiting unlikely roadside attractions, meditation, and her work on the board of the SF Dharma Collective. She's honored to help advance the Cat Town mission in a role that dovetails with her belief that volunteers are the heart, soul, and lifeblood of animal welfare.
Photo by Nicole Dial
ADOPTION MANAGER
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Kristin grew up in Santa Maria, California, and has lived in the Bay Area since 2010. She started volunteering at Cat Town in the summer of 2017, and just two days later fell hard for and adopted her first Cat Town cat, Futaba, as a friend for her cat Niko. She later adopted one of Cat Town’s longest-term residents, Buffy. Kristin joined Cat Town's staff as a Cat Care Attendant in 2018, and began supporting our foster program in 2021 — assisting with foster cat placement, adoption, and everything in between.
In addition to tending to cats at home and at work, Kristin loves acting, and has a passion for seeing the world. She and her husband, Tyler, try to travel somewhere new in the world every year, and they make it a point to visit any cat cafes they find on their travels.
Photo by Shelly Waldman
Foster Program Coordinator
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Muhammad joined Cat Town after helping people solve computer problems and build websites for more than a decade in tech as an IT specialist and web developer. Today, he draws on his his love of cats to help Cat Town's adopters find the right feline friend for their home and family.
Originally from the South Bay, Muhammad fills his spare time reading, playing video games and board games, doing archery, and (of course) spending time with cats. He has a serious sweet tooth, counts A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers among his favorite books, lives by the quote, "Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination."
Muhammad is currently fostering Pepita, who keeps him happily occupied when he's not helping our other cats find loving homes.
Photo of Pepita by David Yeung
ADOPTION ASSOCIATE
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Hannah brings two years of hands-on experience from veterinary clinics, along with a knack for winning over cats who aren’t immediately convinced. She has a soft spot for skeptical cats, as well as confident cats who decide to hop onto her back while she’s cleaning the Studios.
Originally from Davis, Hannah dreamed of growing up to be a marine biologist, but found her way to caring for cats instead. She’s also an artist who specializes in pet portraits (digital, collage, and watercolor are her favorite mediums) and unwinds with RPG and platformer video games. On rainy days, you’ll find her curled up with her cat, Kermit, rewatching Coraline.
Hannah appreciates the quiet companionship cats offer — the sense that you’re choosing each other. They’re soft, they’re sweet, and, in her opinion, their camaraderie is unmatched!Photo by Teresa Wood
Cat Care Attendant
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Kristine grew up with a tabby named Pepper, and border collie mixes named Indie (a Hurricane Katrina rescue) and Pearl. She is a self-proclaimed “dog loving cat person.” Her background in journalism, filmmaking, marketing, and community outreach reflects a love of storytelling that connects people to the causes they care about.
She previously worked as a marketing and content manager, and a director, producer, and photographer for short documentaries and music videos. She once owned a wedding photography business, and from 2016-2024 performed, toured, and taught with San Jose Taiko. Kristine lives in Oakland with a pitty puppy named Charlie (Charlize Theron/Charles/Chuck), and finds joy in dancing, teaching taiko, and planning her next trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She anticipates a Cat Town adoption in her future.Photo by Nicole Dial
DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE
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Arielle grew up in the North Bay, spending their time looking for bugs and hanging out with cats. They started volunteering at Cat Town and Oakland Animal Services in 2018. Arielle has one cat — a Cat Town foster fail who's a fiend for tortilla chips named "Mr. Wallace (Wally) Waluigi Wobbles."
When they're not at Cat Town caring for the resident cats, Arielle likes to be at their desk working on illustrations or video game assets for personal projects. Some of their favorite things are history books, 2D platformers, and surreal anime. Their favorite animals are still spiders.
Photo by Shelly Waldman
Cat Care Attendant
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Alanna has a BA in Theater, currently works part-time at Berkeley Repertory Theater, and writes novels and plays. Before becoming a CCA, she volunteered with Cat Town’s Pet Food Express program for two years. Alanna lives with her cat Onion, who is leash trained, and when lazy, needs to be carried by the end of a walk.
Photo by Era Reverie
Cat Care Attendant
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Ruby joined Cat Town with a lifelong love of animals and a BS in biology and cognitive science from UC Santa Cruz. They began working with cats as a teen, volunteering for four years at the Kern County Animal Shelter. At Cat Town, Ruby has honed their skills in administering medication and supporting shy cats as they grow into confident, curious companions. They aim to bring gentle care and calm confidence to every cat interaction.
Outside of Cat Town, Ruby works at the Oakland Public Library and is an avid reader. They’re also active in the local arts community — organizing events, creating zines, and designing lighting for live shows. Their musical tastes range from Charli XCX to Talking Heads, and they share their home with Lilith, a calico cat Ruby describes as “literally an angel.”Photo by Nicole Dial
Cat Care Attendant
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Adam grew up in San Bernardino with a variety of pets over the years, including cats, dogs, rabbits, fish — even a turtle and a green parrot! He loves that cats are so chill, and in his job, he enjoys how relaxing it is to work with them. When he's not at Cat Town, Adam enjoys listening to his vinyl collection, watching movies, and playing video games. His taste in music is as eclectic as his taste in animals, so when he's not singing death metal, you might find him listening to 90s hip hop or video game soundtracks. He is happy to have traded the hot summers of Southern California for the beautiful weather of Oakland.
Photo by Grace Fujii
Cat Care Attendant
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Originally from Los Angeles, Maria settled in the Bay Area in 2019 after a stretch of long-term travel, choosing Oakland as the place to finally put down roots. Her love of cats began early — at age six, with her first feline friend, Hollis — and has only deepened over the years. These days, she shares her life with Manzanita, a calico rescue adopted six years ago who’s been her shadow ever since.
Maria holds a B.A. in English from UC Santa Barbara and previously worked as a digital marketer at several user experience agencies before joining Cat Town’s staff in 2024. She’s also a long-time creative — a fire performer and multimedia artist with more than a decade of experience bringing ideas to life.
When she’s not crafting stories that help cats find homes, you’ll find her on a yoga mat, taking meandering walks, or rewatching The Office. She lives in Berkeley with sweet Manzanita and too many knick-knacks to count.Photo by Nicole Dial
social media Coordinator
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Bill always thought they were a dog person until feral cats started showing up in their backyard and informed them otherwise. They began feeding them, then worked with ICRA to get them fixed, and moved on to TNRing other feral cats in their neighborhood. After fostering a litter of kittens, two refused to leave their heart, so they foster failed and kept their precious babies, Penelope and The Boy. They later added Tina and Star to the family.
The more energy Bill devotes towards cat care and learning about cats, the more they realize that this is what they want to do with their life. They feel grateful every day that they get to be at Cat Town.Bill also enjoys making jewelry, buying every celebrity memoir they can get their hands on, and arriving everywhere 5 minutes late because they met a cat on the sidewalk on the way there. Their family has lived in the Bay Area for four generations, and yet Bill has still never visited Alcatraz.
Photo by Shelly Waldman