Biography
Education
Andre was educated through Washington's public education system growing up in the Northshore School District. He graduated from Inglemoor High School with a full IB Diploma in 2009.
He attended the University of Washington and worked as an teaching and research assistant in the School of Information. He graduated in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science in Informatics: Human-Computer Interaction. He also worked as an arts writer and editor at the student paper The Daily.
Software engineer
Andre worked as a professional software engineer at the mobile game company Zhurosoft, the computer science education nonprofit Code.org, and the industry-leading Microsoft. He has also worked contracts for sports technology companies and grassroots political organizations.
He maintains a small number of hobby and open source projects on his GitHub.
Political organizer
Andre began politically organizing in 2016 as a volunteer on both Bernie Sanders campaigns. In 2020 he was elected to serve as a delegate at the state and national Democratic Party Conventions. As a delegate he participated in a coordinated protest vote against the party platform due to its exclusion of Medicare for All. He also won a competitive race for Precinct Committee Officer that year but was unable to assume the position due to an unexpected move.
In 2021 he was the lead organizer of the Seattle March for Medicare for All.
Andre began volunteering with the 501(c)4 nonprofit Whole Washington and began working to put universal healthcare on the ballot for Washingtonians to vote on directly. In 2022 he was the campaign director of the I-1471 campaign and would later be made executive director.
Andre has contributed writing to healthcare policy, advised political campaigns, spoken at rallies, provided public comment, and been invited to present three times to Washington's Universal Health Care Commission.
Fencer and coach
Andre has been fencing and competing since he was eleven years old. He learned to fence in Bellevue at Rain City Fencing Center trained under former Soviet Union Olympic coach Garik Balayan. He earned ratings in all three weapons and was Western Washington Foil Champion multiple years. He was a member of the bronze medal Senior Men’s Foil team in the 2011 National Championships.
He earned his coaches certification and a rank of Moniteur in foil and occasionally works as a coach at Rain City.