I founded Indivisible Montgomery, based in Montgomery County, Maryland, in Dec. 2016, in response to the election of Donald Trump. Through the Indivisible Montgomery newsletter, I kept members apprised of relevant news and directed them to discrete, weekly actions to resist and protest the hateful policies of the Trump administration. I was an invited speaker at the Maryland Blue Wave Rally in 2018 and a rally in support of Trump’s first impeachment in 2019. For our work to elect Democrats to the House in 2018, Indivisible Montgomery and our Blue Wave coalition partners were awarded the Democracy Summer Leadership Award from Rep. Jamie Raskin, and I received the Alexander Hamilton Citizenship Award from Democratic precinct captain Jane Barbara, both in 2018. In recognition for my work with Indivisible Montgomery, Montgomery County Councilmember Evan Glass presented me with a commendation from the County Council in 2021.
Born in Michigan to an officer of the United States Air Force and a stay-at-home mom, I lived in Alabama, Colorado, Maryland, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia, with a one-year stint in the United Kingdom, before I turned 18. Even though I shared my father’s sense of duty to my country, I didn’t follow in his military footsteps. I pursued a career in molecular biology, attending college at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and earning my Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 2006. I then moved to St. Louis to continue my research. While in St. Louis, I met Katherine, and we were married in 2010.
In the summer of 2012, I left bench research, and Katherine and I moved to Silver Spring, Maryland. There I embarked on a career in science policy with the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) advocating for improved training of biomedical graduate students and postdocs. While in Maryland, we welcomed two baby girls, Nancy in 2013 and Hazel in 2016. Also in 2016, I left the ASBMB and became the director of Rescuing Biomedical Research, a group committed to positive policy changes in the biomedical research enterprise that included among its members a Nobel Laureate, former leaders of the National Institutes of Health, current and former university presidents, and a former member of Congress.
My job with RBR ended at the beginning of 2021, and I stepped down as executive director of Indivisible Montgomery on January 20, 2021, two hours after Joe Biden was inaugurated as president. Katherine, Nancy, Hazel, and I live in Silver Spring. I work at the National Institutes of Health as a data analyst, where I started in March 2021. I am an avid runner and have completed multiple half-marathons. Each election season, I work to elect pro-democracy Democrats in local, state, and federal elections.
Chris Pickett - author 