UCLA Political Science Board of Advisors

The UCLA Political Science Board of Advisors exists to propel the UCLA Department of Political Science to be recognized as the preeminent Political Science Department worldwide by ensuring that resources are available to recruit and retain the best faculty and graduate students. The board taps into the energy and talents of our alumni to ensure that the UCLA Department of Political Science continues to be an engine of opportunity, facilitating our students’ transition to fulfilling professional lives.

Board Members

Zachary Aron

BA ’94 Political Science

Mr. Aron is Deloitte’s Global and U.S. Payments Leader. He has over 30 years of experience, specializing in providing business strategy, operations and technology solutions to payments clients. His focus areas include corporate payments, credit and debit cards, alternative payments, online lending, payment networks and treasury management with expertise in the development and rollout of new business lines, products, services and associated operating models both in the U.S. and Internationally. Mr. Aron has partnered with financial institutions, merchants, networks and FinTech payments providers to develop new payments-related product and service strategies using emerging technologies or new acquisitions. Mr. Aron has been a guest speaker at numerous industry conferences and client board and advisory meetings in subjects around the world. Mr. Aron has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dena Enos

BA ’02 Political Science

Dena has spent her career innovating consumer and B2B marketing through quantitative approaches. She founded StrongHouse to innovate how marketing organizations optimize themselves, and to create a whole new way of giving back through her professional work. Since inception, StrongHouse has catalyzed growth in over 75 organizations across multiple industries including healthcare, consumer products, biotech, education, banking, travel, and the nonprofit sector.

In addition to serving UCLA, Dena currently serves as Vice Chair for the Board of Directors for Prosperity Catalyst. She is also on the Board of Directors for Strategies for Youth, an angel investor, and serves as a mentor for Hack Diversity. Previously, she was a member of the original start up teams for OneTime, as General Manager, and VirtualTourist, as Vice President of Marketing, which were both acquired by Expedia in June 2008. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles, with highest honors in Political Science.

James L. Hsu

BA, ’91 Political Science
JD ’94 UCLA School of Law

James Hsu is the managing partner of Squire Patton Boggs’ Los Angeles office. James represents clients in a broad range of corporate and securities matters including mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity offerings, public finance transactions, tax exempt financing, fund formation, private equity and venture capital transactions, joint ventures and partnerships, technology licensing and general corporate counseling. James was selected by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) as one of the Best Lawyers under 40 in 2005. In 2007, James received the California Lawyer’s Angel Award for outstanding pro bono service. James is a board member of the UCLA School of Law Alumni Association, and the Center for Asian Americans United for Self-Empowerment (CAUSE). James lives with his wife, Shelley Wang, who is also a UCLA alumnus, in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Stephen J. Kaufman

BA ’84 Political Science

Stephen J. Kaufman is the founder of Kaufman Legal Group, a law firm specializing in the niche market of political law.  The firm has offices in Los Angeles and Sacramento, advising clients on a wide variety of campaign finance and election law issues and representing them in government investigations.  A recognized authority in the field of campaign finance and election law, Mr. Kaufman’s clients include some of the top political players in California and Washington, D.C., including elected officials, candidates, PACs, labor unions, businesses, non-profit organizations, ballot measure campaigns, political parties, campaign donors, and government agencies.

Mr. Kaufman is an expert on voting systems and election procedures. He was a recount attorney for the Gore-Lieberman campaign in Florida following the 2000 Presidential election, and in 2001, he was appointed Chief Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Caucus Special Committee on Election Reform. He currently serves as Chair of the State Voting Modernization Board, and is a former President of the California Political Attorneys Association.

Mr. Kaufman obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from UCLA in 1984, and received his law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco in 1987.

A frequent author and speaker on campaign reform and election issues, Mr. Kaufman appears regularly in the local media and serves as a lecturer and panelist before numerous public and private organizations. He was selected by California Law Business magazine in 2001 as one of California’s top 20 attorneys under age 40, and is a past recipient of the California State Bar’s Wiley W. Manuel Award for his commitment to pro bono legal services. Mr. Kaufman was named by the Los Angeles Business Journal as one of the 500 most influential people in Los Angeles in 2016 and 2017, and was honored by the Daily Journal as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California in 2018.

Beatriz Mejia

BA ’94 Political Science

Beatriz Mejia is a partner in the San Francisco office of Cooley LLP. Her practice focuses on complex business disputes and general business litigation. In recent years, Beatriz’s practice has focused on international cartel investigations and related litigation. Her experience includes representing both corporations and individuals in government investigations brought by antitrust authorities around the world, including the US, Europe, Korea and Japan, and in litigation brought in multi-district and related class actions. Beatriz also has represented clients in antitrust litigation involving a range of federal and state antitrust claims, including monopolization claims. She currently serves as Northern California head of Cooley’s business litigation practice.

Beatriz is an active member of the Hispanic National Bar Association, the California La Raza Lawyers Association and La Raza Lawyers Association of San Francisco. She is a former President and Executive Board member of the California La Raza Lawyers Association and is currently serving as Treasurer. She is also a former Board of Directors member of La Raza Lawyers Association of San Francisco. Beatriz is currently serving as a Board member for Centro Legal de La Raza, a legal services agency in Oakland. She is also a Board member of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers and Vice Chair of the Cartel & Criminal Practice Committee, America Bar Association’s Antitrust Section. Beatriz is currently serving as a member of the Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of California.

Neama Rahmani

BA ’99 Political Science

Neama is a world-renowned lawyer and the President and co-founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers. He has over 20 years of experience handling civil and criminal cases and he regularly appears on CNN, Fox News, BBC, and other television stations to provide his expert analysis on the law.

Neama graduated from UCLA at the age of 19 and Harvard Law School at the age of 22, making him one of the youngest graduates in the 200-year history of Harvard Law School. Upon graduation, Neama was hired by the largest law firm in Los Angeles, where he met his partner, Allen Patatanyan, and he represented companies such as Disney, Marriott, and the Roman Catholic Church.

But Neama wanted to help ordinary people, not corporations, so he joined the Department of Justice and prosecuted drug and human trafficking cases along the United States-Mexico border. While working as a federal prosecutor, Neama captured and successfully prosecuted a fugitive murderer and drug kingpin who was featured on “America’s Most Wanted.” Neama was then appointed to be the Director of Enforcement of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission and oversaw and investigated the elected officials and highest-level employees of the City of Los Angeles, including the Mayor and City Council. He held that position until founding West Coast Trial Lawyers, which has grown to 25 lawyers and 200 non-lawyer staff. Neama has extensive trial experience leading teams of attorneys against the largest companies in the world. He has successfully tried dozens of cases to jury verdict as lead trial counsel and has argued and won before state and federal appeals courts. Over the course of his career, Neama has handled thousands of civil cases, obtaining many seven and eight-figure settlements and judgments, and has helped his clients win more than $1 billion. He has also put more than a thousand criminal defendants in prison.

Neama is licensed to practice law in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Washington state. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, a lawyer for foster children, and teenage son and daughter.

Scott Richland

BA ’83 Political Science

Scott Richland is the Chief Investment Officer of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena California, which he joined in 2010. In his role he oversees the investment of Caltech’s $4.2 billion endowment and $550 million capital expenditure fund and also oversees the Institute’s insurance risk management and off-campus real estate acquisition and divestiture programs.  Since joining Caltech he and his team have moved the endowment from a bottom quartile performer to the top decile. He is a member of the President’s cabinet, the Institute Administrative Council, the JPL Retiree Healthcare Plan Board of Trustees, and various other Institute committees.  In addition, he has led or served on the search committees for several executive-level searches for the Institute.  Mr. Richland has announced that he will be stepping down from his position at Caltech on December 31, 2024.

Mr. Richland is currently a member of the Investment Committees of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles and John Muir Health System. He earned his MBA from Stanford University, where he was designated an Arjay Miller Scholar, and his bachelor’s degree, cum laude, in political science from UCLA.  He resides in Orinda, California with his wife, Cathleen.  They have two adult sons who both live in the San Francisco Bay area.

Bruce Schachne

BA ’87 Political Science

Bruce Schachne recently retired in May 2024 after a 36 year professional career in the Fintech industry, most recently as the global Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of S&P Dow Jones Indices in New York City.  As part of that role Bruce also served as a member of the Board of Directors of S&P Dow Jones Indices for 3 years.  Bruce spent a total of 19 years at S&P Global in various leadership roles, including 7 years as head of Sales for the Americas region and as Global Head of Marketing for S&P Global Ratings.  Prior to S&P, Bruce held leadership roles in sales, marketing, product management and business development for Dow Jones and Reuters in Frankfurt, London and New York.  Bruce has done business in over 50 countries around the world.

Bruce grew up in Los Angeles and attended UCLA, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science with a particular focus on international political economy, graduating summa cum laude and with highest departmental honors. As part of UCLA’s education abroad program, Bruce studied at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, and he later earned an MBA in Marketing while working for Dow Jones in Frankfurt, Germany.

Jim Scheinberg

BA ’94 Political Science

Jim Scheinberg is Managing Partner, Founder & Chief Investment Officer of North Pier Fiduciary Management. He began his career in venture capital in 1990 moving to general securities with Smith Barney Harris Upham in 1992. He joined Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. in 1994 as an Associate in the Oppenheimer Consulting Group, the firm’s institutional investment management consulting department, where he worked with sponsors of trustee-directed plans and other institutional clients. In 2001, Jim founded what would become the Corporate Services Group of Oppenheimer Co., Inc. (CSG), where he eventually held the position of Director and Senior Vice President. CSG was an industry pioneer in providing conflict free, fee-only investment consulting and fiduciary advocacy for institutional, participant-directed plan sponsors. In 2008, Jim and CSG Partner Brant Griffin founded North Pier Fiduciary Management LLC.

Jill E. Tananbaum

BA ’88 Political Science

Jill Tananbaum has more than 25 years of complex commercial legal experience. She is licensed by the State Bars of California, New York and Texas as well a member of several Federal Courts covering California, New York and Texas. Jill graduated in 1988 from UCLA with a B.A. in Political Science/Business Emphasis and in 1992 from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles with a J.D. where she was awarded Order of the Coif, Alpha Sigma Nu Law Honor Society and Saint Thomas More Law Honor Society. She worked in Washington, D.C. as United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist’s and Justice O’Connor’s judicial intern. Ms. Tananbaum served as Judicial Extern for The Honorable Consuelo Marshall in Federal Court for the Central District of California Court in Los Angeles and worked as a summer attorney in New York and Los Angeles for Coudert Brothers. During her third year in law school, she served as a student District Attorney in Los Angeles County, Inglewood Division.

After law school, Ms. Tananbaum practiced for two years in Coudert Brothers’ litigation department. She moved to Dallas, Texas in 1994, and joined Jones Days’ litigation department, before founding Breakwater Strategies, a general counsel/litigation management and strategy practice in 2000. She has handled many complex business and financial matters as well as family law matters involving complex business and financial issues. Jill is a member of the Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas and has been quoted in Law360.

Jill lives in Highland Park, Texas with her two sons, Kyle and Jason.

Howard S. Welinsky

BA ’72 Political Science

Howard Welinsky retired from a 42 year career at Warner Bros in 2016 as Sr VP Adm for the Division that distributed Motion Pictures to Theatres. Long active in Democratic politics serving on the State Central Committee since 1977 and been a delegate or Platform Committee for nine Conventions.  For many years has advocated for UC in Sacramento through the UCLA Governmental Relations Program and serves on the Social Science Dean’s Cabinet and Blue Shield.  Howard lives in Toluca Lake with his wife Karren Ganstwig who is also a UCLA grad who serves on the Iris Cantor Women’s health Board, Women in Philanthropy and Gold Shield.

Adam Wolfson

BA ’01 Political Science

Adam Wolfson is a partner in Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP’s Los Angeles office whose practice focuses on both plaintiff and defense-side representations in high-stakes complex commercial and intellectual property disputes. Adam has extensive experience in all types of complex litigation, with a particular focus in cases involving antitrust law, products liability, class actions, unfair competition, trade secret misappropriation, and patent and copyright infringement. To date, he has helped his clients obtain more than $5 billion in recoveries, stemming from both trial verdicts and settlements.  On the defense side, he has helped clients avoid liability for multiples of that number.  Adam has been named a Rising Star in class actions by national legal journal Law360, and was named by Legal 500 USA as a Recommended Lawyer in the Antitrust Litigation category.

Steven Young

BA ’70 Political Science

Steven E. Young is a partner and the Head of the Litigation Group at Practus LLP. His practice focuses on intellectual property, licensing, entertainment, real estate and general business litigation. Additionally, he has significant experience in all aspects of licensing of products such as fashion items, furniture, automotive performance products, luxury brand liquor and other lifestyle products, involving, among other things, television and motion picture characters, sports teams and personalities as well as original works of art. Mr. Young has conducted numerous jury and non-jury trials in both State and Federal Courts as well as arbitrations.

Mr. Young has authored articles for the American Bar Association, has been a Judge Pro Tem in the Los Angeles Superior Court, and has received numerous accolades in the Los Angeles Daily Journal and Metropolitan News. He has been awarded an AV Preeminent Rating by Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review, the highest rating in legal ability and ethical standards, and named to the Southern California Super Lawyers list (2016-2017), a designation bestowed on only the top 5% of lawyers in this region. Mr. Young is a past Chairman of the Board of the Petersen Automotive Museum.