Political scientist turned coder, Lorena Mesa is a GitHub data engineer, Python Software Foundation Chair, JOSS editor, & PyLadies Chicago co-organizer. Lorena's time at Obama for America & background in research and applied mathematics drove Lorena to pursue a career in engineering and data science. One part activist, one part Star Wars fanatic, and another part Trekkie, Lorena abides by the motto to "live long and prosper".