Maura Zehr assists with strategic communications planning and implementation on a variety of issues, including education, wildlife protection and environmental conservation, child nutrition, financial reform and public defense. Maura also provides research analysis, including an extensive media analysis of human rights and national security issues and in-depth research on the civil right to counsel. She helped with the release of Spitfire’s first-of-its-kind campaign planning tool, The Just Enough Planning Guide.

Prior to Spitfire, Maura worked as a community reporter at The Arizona Republic, where her beats included features and housing in the West Valley of metropolitan Phoenix. Some of her favorite stories covered Habitat for Humanity; the AZ Lost Boys Center, an organization that assists Sudanese refugees; and Maggie’s Place, a network of homes for pregnant women who are alone or on the streets. Before joining the Republic full-time, Maura spent a summer working in the newspaper’s main features section as a Pulliam Fellow.

Maura earned her M.A. in public communication from American University in Washington, D.C. and received her B.A. in journalism from Indiana University.

While at Indiana University, she interned at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida and held several positions at the Indiana Daily Student. In 2004, Maura was named the undergraduate winner at IU’s Commission on Multicultural Understanding annual awards for her thorough reporting coverage of the university’s cultural centers, GLBT office and diversity issues.

Maura is a frequent volunteer at the Washington Humane Society, where she meets with potential adopters, educates people about WHS and the importance of adopting pets from shelters – and most importantly – helps animals find forever homes.