Rachel Lawler is research director at Competitive Edge Research and Communication. Previously, she was a survey analyst at PPIC, as well as a client manager at Kantar Millward Brown. She also served on the staff of former California congressman Elton Gallegly. She has experience in both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Her specialties include questionnaire design, data preparation and analysis, and report writing. She joined the PPIC Survey Advisory Committee in 2023. She holds a BA in political science from Chapman University and an MA in American politics and foreign policy from the University College Dublin.

Deja Thomas is a survey analyst at the Public Policy Institute of California, where she works with the statewide survey team. Prior to joining PPIC, she was a research assistant with the social and demographic trends team at the Pew Research Center. In that role, she contributed to a variety of national quantitative and qualitative survey studies. She holds a BA in psychology from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.