Elizabeth Jarvis-Shean currently works as the Research Director for Obama for America. Prior to that, she served as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Research at the White House, as Head of Research for the Presidential Transition Team, and as the Deputy Director of Content for the 2008 Obama campaign. She previously worked as a research and communications strategist at CNBC and as Vice President at IMS, Inc., a research consulting firm. A native of Sacramento, California, Jarvis-Shean studied at the University of Cape Town and was the fifth generation of her family to attend the University of California, Berkeley, from which she graduated with high honors in political science.