25 Facts About Chrissy Houlahan

Christina Marie Houlahan is an American politician, engineer, and former United States Air Force officer.

Chrissy Houlahan was first elected in 2018, defeating Republican Greg McCauley in the midterms.

Chrissy Houlahan spent her childhood on various US naval bases across the country, including on Oahu.

Chrissy Houlahan's father, Andrew C A Jampoler, a naval aviator, was born in Lviv, Ukraine in 1942, to a Jewish family; he and his mother, who survived the Holocaust, emigrated to the United States when he was four years old.

Chrissy Houlahan, citing her idols as Indiana Jones and Sally Ride, earned her bachelor's degree in engineering from Stanford University in 1989, on an AFROTC scholarship.

Chrissy Houlahan then earned a master's degree in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994.

Chrissy Houlahan left active duty in 1991 for the Air Force Reserve, separating from the service in 2004 as a captain.

Chrissy Houlahan dedicated her hours to working with girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and math.

Chrissy Houlahan became chief operating officer of B-Lab, a non-profit start-up, when AND1 was sold.

Chrissy Houlahan enrolled in the Teach for America program and began working as an 11th-grade science teacher at Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia.

Chrissy Houlahan withdrew from the Teach for America program after one year and joined Springboard Collaborative, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit focusing on early childhood literacy in underserved populations nationwide.

Chrissy Houlahan has said that one of the experiences that motivated her to run for Congress was her organization of a bus trip to the Women's March in Washington, DC, on January 21,2017.

Chrissy Houlahan took the Democratic nomination unopposed and faced first-time candidate Greg McCauley in the general election.

Chrissy Houlahan was one of seven Pennsylvania women running for the US House of Representatives in 2018, and one of four Democratic women to win, along with Mary Gay Scanlon, Madeleine Dean and Susan Wild.

Chrissy Houlahan joined two other female military veterans in the House freshman class, former naval officers Elaine Luria and Mikie Sherrill.

Chrissy Houlahan ran on a platform that included healthcare, job creation, and campaign finance reform.

Chrissy Houlahan had a strong record of campaign fundraising, with donations totaling almost $5 million so far.

Chrissy Houlahan was endorsed by many organizations, including Emily's List, Human Rights Campaign, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Project 100, Vote Vets, the Service Employees International Union-PA and several other unions.

Chrissy Houlahan ran for re-election in 2020 against Republican John Emmons.

Chrissy Houlahan had publicly expressed interest in a 2022 campaign for the United States Senate, but on June 8, she announced she would run for reelection to the House.

On July 29,2024, Chrissy Houlahan was announced as one of six Democratic members of a bipartisan task force investigating the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

On March 6,2025, Chrissy Houlahan was one of ten Democrats in Congress who joined all of their Republican colleagues in voting to censure Democratic congressman Al Green for interrupting President Donald Trump's State of the Union Address.

In 2022, Chrissy Houlahan was one of 16 Democrats to vote against the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022, an antitrust package that would crack down on corporations for anti-competitive behavior.

Chrissy Houlahan believes that critical and emerging technology leadership is a core component of US national security, citing biotechnology as a priority for research and development.

Chrissy Houlahan has focused on shoring up critical materials and resources, like transformers, and believes that American small businesses focused on critical and emerging technologies should have streamlined access to federal programs.