Dr. Sophia Marjanovic is the Bilingual Senior Organizer at the Center for Science and Democracy of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dr. Marjanovic received a Ph.D. in immunology and microbiology from the George Washington University in order to work on accountability and healing for her Fort Peck Oceti Sakowin and Assiniboine community, which has suffered from the toxins of oil and natural gas extraction. Dr. Marjanovic, through her father, is also of the Iipay tribe of the Kumeyaay nation, which is split by the U.S.-Mexican border. Dr. Marjanovic helps organize communities to ensure that solutions get implemented into law for the people who are most often marginalized into erasure.
In 2016, Dr. Marjanovic worked in Maryland to get the country’s first statewide police accountability bill passed and implemented into law. In 2017, Dr. Marjanovic helped to get Maryland’s Fight for $15 minimum wage bill passed into law. In 2021, Dr. Marjanovic also helped to organize communities in various states to push Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Angus King to co-sponsor the PRO Act for the most advances in U.S. worker protections in decades. Senator King specifically cited the million phone calls that Dr. Marjanovic drove to his and other Senators’ offices for changing his mind on his co-sponsorship of the PRO Act.