Experience and Qualifications
Anna Kelles brings a background in science, education, and local government to her work in the Assembly. She earned a Ph.D. in nutritional epidemiology, served on the faculty at Ithaca College and Cornell University, and was dean of the School of Applied Clinical Nutrition at New York Chiropractic College. Her experience also includes environmental nonprofit work in the Amazon and five years locally in the Tompkins County Legislature. In the State Assembly, she currently chairs the Legislative Commission on Rural Resources and serves on the Agriculture, Correction, Environmental Conservation, Health, Higher Education, and Housing committees. Her scientific training helps her evaluate evidence and use research in the careful design and advocacy of policy. Her work with communities reminds her to listen closely to the people affected by government decisions and to ground policy in their daily lives.
Community Involvement
Anna Kelles’s community work includes writing and publishing news articles to help the public understand the environmental and utility rate impacts of data centers and advocating for community protections. She also teaches civics in local high schools and universities, helping students understand how government works and how they can participate effectively and influence decisions.
Education
Anna Kelles earned dual undergraduate degrees in environmental studies and biology from Binghamton University and a Ph.D. in nutritional epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Campaign Endorsements
SEIU1199, CWA, NYSNA, CSEA, NYSUT, UAW, AFL-CIO, North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, Planned Parenthood, Eleanor’s Legacy, Family Planning Action Fund, The Caring Majority, NYIC, Citizen Action, Tenant PAC, 314 Action, NYLCV, StreetsPAC, Ithaca Sunrise Movement, VOCAL-NY, Open NY, NYPAN, and WFP.
Campaign Instagram
@kelles4ny
Campaign YouTube
She will work to expand home and palliative care so people can age at home, provide fair wages for caregivers, increase education and training to address rural and mental healthcare workforce shortages, and keep prescriptions affordable.
She will champion building decarbonization, deconstruction incentives and worker training, producer responsibility for textile reuse and recycling, limits on land spreading of toxic sewage sludge to reduce PFAS contamination, harmful algal bloom prevention, and restoration of native plants and pollinator habitats. She will push to end subsidized power and tax breaks for large data centers and require annual public reporting of energy use, water use, and pollution.
She will advance rehabilitation for people who are incarcerated through earned time for workforce training and education, enforce protections against abuse in custody, and strengthen housing and healthcare access after release to help people rebuild their lives and improve public safety.
We need to both reduce current emissions and prepare communities for current climate damage. Anna will fight for renewable energy and a statewide virtual power plant program that pays New Yorkers for reducing demand and supplying stored energy from home and EV batteries. This would strengthen the grid, lower costs, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. She will also continue advancing protections from data centers.
Her building legislation would cut emissions by reusing materials while supporting deconstruction and workforce training. She will seek sustained funding to repair aging stormwater systems as heavier rainfall increases flooding. She will champion native plants, pollinator habitats, and prevention of harmful algal blooms to strengthen natural ecosystems. Her Climate Accountability and Loss Recovery Act would make major fossil fuel companies help cover climate disaster and related insurance costs instead of leaving families and local governments to bear them alone.
Our criminal justice system should foster rehabilitation and prepare people for a healthy return to their families and communities. Anna will champion the Earned Time Act, which expands good-time and merit-time credits and rewards participation in education, workforce training, treatment, and other constructive programming. She will fight for the CARE Act to protect the health and human rights of incarcerated pregnant people, birthing parents, and their children. She will also advance legislation allowing people in custody to confidentially report abuse to healthcare professionals and requiring these professionals to report it for investigation. Her forensic science reform bill, A.3969, would strengthen scientific oversight, establish an equity and ethics review committee, and create licensing standards for forensic analysts. Together, these policies would protect dignity, reduce violence, support successful reentry, and address inequities that have fueled mass incarceration.
For nearly 40 years, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the standard established in Thornburg v. Gingles have guarded against maps that dilute the political voice of communities of color. The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais sharply narrowed this protection, making it harder to defend majority-minority districts as necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act. New York can no longer assume federal law will protect fair representation.
New York should strengthen its John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act so its protections stand independently of the narrowed federal standard. It should review districts now to identify maps vulnerable under Callais rather than waiting for lawsuits. The Independent Redistricting Commission should document how community ties, compactness, existing boundaries, and other race-neutral criteria support each district before the 2030 cycle. This would protect fair representation while making our maps more resilient to constitutional challenge.
