Bachelor of Arts Candidate, Concentration: Social Studieszevshapiro@college.harvard.eduContact
Zev Shapiro has a decade of experience in progressive politics and youth engagement and is Founder and Executive Director of TurnUp - a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and mobile app which comprises the largest youth-led voter registration and turnout initiative in America. Since 2019, TurnUp reached 80 million impressions of their ads making it easy to register and vote, sent over 20 million texts to young voters, helped register more than 250,000 students to vote, and graduated 7,000+ young people from their many months-long training program who collectively contributed 39,000 volunteer-hours registering and mobilizing new young voters. In 2023, TurnUp conducted physical voter registration drives at 1,000 key high schools and 100 key community colleges, registering over 60,000 students to vote. TurnUp organized the largest youth-led voter registration and turnout operation in the past two cycles and was recognized by Forbes as the standout tech non-profit of 2022.
Zev started as a community activist in fourth grade by successfully advocating for equal access to healthy food at his public school. At age nine, he launched his political path by volunteering for the senate campaigns of both Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and served, at 10, as the campaign manager for a Cambridge, Massachusetts School Committee candidate. He has spoken to audiences ranging from small campaign gatherings to large auditoriums about the importance and power of community involvement. Zev was a featured speaker at Thrivals in Louisville, KY in 2013. At the end of 8th grade, he interned for the Chief of Staff at MA Attorney General Maura Healey’s office; at the end of 9th grade, he interned for the State Director at U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office. He was Elizabeth Warren’s special guest to the State of the Union Address in 2014, and he introduced Elizabeth Warren at the 2017 Massachusetts Democratic Convention. Zev worked for three years as a leader of the Massachusetts High School Democrats and one year as their liaison to the Democratic Party. He has worked on initiatives to increase the youth audience for traditional media/news sources and has been featured on NPR, The Boston Sunday Globe, The Boston Herald, WGBH, NECN, and other television networks. Zev has also created three award winning National History Day Documentaries.Zev lives in Cambridge, MA and has two younger brothers. He is an avid cycler and tennis player, and plays the violin, viola and piano. Zev is a senior at Harvard.