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Libby Schaaf is a faculty lecturer at the Goldman School of Public Policy at University of California, Berkeley. She served as Mayor of Oakland from 2015-2022 and is a candidate for California State Treasurer in 2026. Under her leadership, Oakland had its lowest 5-year gun violence rate in its history and cut shootings and homicides roughly in half. A report from the Gifford’s Law Center “A Case Study in Hope: Lessons from Oakland’s Remarkable Reduction in Gun Violence” concludes that Schaaf drove the “recommitment to the strategy from key city agencies,” and that “Mayor Libby Schaaf played an instrumental role in ensuring the institutionalization of Oakland Ceasefire.” Schaaf also set records in fixing roads and producing housing and created The Oakland Promise, nationally recognized as the most comprehensive cradle-to-career program of its kind.
In 2018, Politico named Schaaf one of the 50 most influential people in American politics. She was appointed by Governor Newsom to his Council of Regional Homelessness Advisors. She was the first woman elected Chair of the Big City Mayors of California and as Democratic Co-chair of the national bi-partisan Mayor & CEOs for US Housing Investment. She participated as a local leader in COP21 (Paris Climate Accords) and in the US delegations to Habitat III (Quito) and COP 27 (Egypt) and is an Aspen Institute Rodel Fellow.
She currently serves as HUD’s appointee to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Bay Area Housing Finance Authority. She teaches at the Goldman Public Policy School at UC Berkeley and holds a Senior Fellowship at the Harvard EdRedesign Lab.