Caroline has devoted her career to public service. She currently serves as a State Representative for the 144th District in Stamford, where she is honored to be a voice for the people of Stamford in the state legislature. Since she was elected in 2014, she has been a champion for Stamford schools, small businesses, public safety, our environment, transportation, reducing racial and economic inequities, and improving quality of life and making Stamford more affordable. Since her second term, she has been co-chair of the Commerce Committee and successfully introduced, led debate, and helped pass over 16 bipartisan business bills. She is a passionate advocate for women and minority-owned businesses and has helped pass legislation to provide more grants and access to capital to entrepreneurs, startups, and to support small business and job growth across Connecticut. She also serves as a member of the Higher Education and Employment and Human Services Committees, and was previously a member of the Public Safety and Security Committee. In 2015, she was awarded the Police Chiefs’ Legislator of the Year Award and in 2017, she received the NARAL Pro Choice Connecticut Legislative Champions Award. Caroline also serves on the bi-partisan Young Legislators’ and Women’s Caucuses. 

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Caroline currently works at Yale University at Elevate: A Policy Lab to Elevate Mental Health and Disrupt Poverty, which is based out of the Yale School of Medicine, where she focuses on maternal mental health policies to help families thrive. Prior to this, she worked at the Women’s Business Development Council in Stamford where she helped provide entrepreneurial, financial, and professional development training programs for women in Connecticut. She serves on the Women's Business Development Council's board and on the Executive Committee Board of the Stamford Partnership. She also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Wesleyan University, where she taught a class on state and local government. 

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Prior to serving in the General Assembly, Caroline worked at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for four and a half years. At DHS, Caroline served as a Special Assistant in the Office of the Secretary, a Policy Analyst in the Office of the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, and as a Director of Special Projects in the Counterterrorism Coordinator’s Office at Homeland Security. In these roles, Caroline provided support for DHS’s domestic and international counterterrorism programs and helped support DHS’s programs and budget for its homeland security team in Kabul, Afghanistan, and she traveled to Kabul multiple times in connection with this work. Caroline also worked to enhance the Department’s countering violent extremism and active shooter awareness and response training for state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement officers. Before this, Caroline interned at the U.S. Department of State for the Middle East Partnership Initiative within the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, where she assisted with economic empowerment programs in the Middle East.

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Caroline has a BA in Government from Harvard University (2008) and an MA in Middle East Studies (2011) from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Caroline also studied at the American University in Cairo, Egypt and the Arabic Language Institute in Fez, Morocco.

 

Caroline and her husband Art Linares live in Stamford and are the proud parents of two sons Teddy & Jack.

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