Sahar Shirazi is a senior planning advisor at the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research in Sacramento. With a systems thinking approach and a goal of policy implementation, she focuses on the intersections of sustainability, land use, transportation, and equity Prior to joining OPR, Sahar was a policy analyst for the Office of the Secretary at US DOT, under both Secretary LaHood and Secretary Foxx. She served as a lead for the HUD-EPA-DOT partnership for sustainable communities; team lead and performance management director for the TIGER grant program; and key staff for bicycle and pedestrian policy, resiliency policy, place based programs, and ladders of opportunity initiatives. While in DC, Sahar also served a 7-month detail in the Obama administration at the White House, working as a policy lead for a presidential initiative to streamline permitting reviews while enhancing environmental outcomes. Sahar received her bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley and her Master’s in Public Policy from Mills College in Oakland, CA. She moved to DC as a Presidential Management Fellow in 2011 and moved back to CA in 2015. Despite the excitement of her experiences in DC, Sahar was ecstatic to return to California, where she had lived since immigrating to the US at age 5. She currently lives in Oakland, where she spends her time engaging her community in policy education and advocacy, throwing benefits for local and international causes, and cooking giant Persian meals for friends and strangers.