Gina Cooper is the Founder of Netroots Nation and served as it’s Executive Director for three years. Well known for her online political work that uses the latest technological and social networking innovations to balance the competing interests of expert opinion and wisdom of crowds, Cooper has permanently altered the progressive political landscape.

In 2006 the inaugural gathering of Netroots Nation (known then as the YearlyKos Convention) included Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and the entire political press core. In 2007, the convention held it’s second annual gathering in Chicago featuring a debate among 7 of the 8 major Democratic presidential candidates. Many of the nearly 200 journalists and reporters in attendance noted that the YearlyKos Presidential Leadership Forum was one of the most exciting and substantive debates of the primary season.

In 2008 Cooper moderated a keynote discussion with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and special guest Vice President Al Gore. The event drew acclaim from technology mavens and activists alike for it’s inclusion of a unique citizen-driven participation portal, AsktheSpeaker.org.

Cooper has been a featured speaker at the Personal Democracy Forum, the BlogHer Conference, Take Back America and the Society for New Communications Research, a new media think tank. Her writings on politics have appeared at DailyKos.com and HuffingtonPost.com and she has been featured as an expert on politics and technology in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Times of London, The Guardian, Le Monde, Europa, Wired Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Austin American Statesman, Las Vegas Review Journal and other national and international publications. She has been a guest on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, NPR’s Morning Edition and Talk of the Nation.

Cooper is lauded in Markos Moulitsas’ upcoming book, Taking On The System, as an “inspirational force” who “navigated the obstacles of blogger egos, selfish interest groups, a lack of supplies and funds, demanding conference hall labor unions and an impossible to please audience” to “stage a top notch production.”

Her convention success and volunteer work for Ned Lamont was highlighted in Matt Bai’s book, The Argument where her media corralling made her an essential member of the Lamont team who “seemed to have forgotten that Gina was a blogger who had just arrived from out of town. It was as if she had been doing this for years.”

Garrett Graff noted in the Washingtonian, “Gina Cooper, who for three years has been the convention’s chief (and more recently full-time) organizer and has in that time come to be known as one of the netroots’ spokespeople, announced that she was stepping down—off to pursue new adventures and new challenges. After all, she’d delivered the bloggers into the ranks of the Democratic elite. What more was there to do here?”

Cooper obtained a BS in Natural Science from Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tennessee and in 2008 was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award.

Also in 2008, Cooper was named one of 40 Under 40 Emerging Leaders by the New Leaders Council.

Prior to getting involved in the progressive political space, Cooper taught high school science and math for 13 years in Memphis, Tennessee. She currently lives with her husband and a variety of country critters in Sonoma County, California and blogs her thoughts as a citizen turned political operative at GinaCooper.com.