Representative Lorig Charkoudian Contact information

Lorig Charkoudian was born on February 14, 1973, in Boston, Massachusetts. She attended Newton North High School and graduated in 1991. She then went on to Pomona College, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematical Economics in 1995.

After her undergraduate studies, she moved to Baltimore to attend Johns Hopkins University. There, she earned a Master of Arts degree in Economics in 1997 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics in 2001.

In her early career, Charkoudian served as the executive director of Community Mediation Maryland from 2004. She has also served on the boards of directors of multiple local organizations, including the Takoma Park Silver Spring Food Co-op and the Crossroads Community Food Network.

Charkoudian is a member of the Montgomery County Women’s Democratic Club. In August 2004, she became involved in efforts to lobby Starbucks to allow mothers to breastfeed openly. Charkoudian also participated in protests outside of the U.S. Supreme Court against the death penalty, nuclear weapons, and the Iraq War.

In 2011, Charkoudian unsuccessfully ran for the Takoma Park City Council, losing to Tim Male by a margin of 17 votes out of 685 cast.

In December 2016, after state Delegate William C. Smith Jr. was appointed to the Maryland Senate following the election of Jamie Raskin to the U.S. House of Representatives, Charkoudian applied to serve the remainder of Smith’s term in the Maryland House of Delegates.

The Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee voted 19-9 to nominate committee member Jheanelle Wilkins to the seat in January 2017. Later that year, Charkoudian graduated from a training course hosted by Emerge Maryland, an organization created to prepare potential female Democratic candidates for public office, and filed to run for District 20 in the 2018 Maryland House of Delegates election.

She ran on a slate with Smith, Wilkins, and state Delegate David Moon, and placed third in the Democratic primary with 18.7 percent of the vote. Since then, she has been serving as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates representing District 20.