Danica Roem is a lifelong Virginian from Manassas and an alumna of Emerge Virginia’s 2017 boot camp program. Danica worked as a community newspaper reporter for 10.5 years, authoring more than 2,500 news stories about her home community of Prince William County as the lead reporter of the Gainesville Times / Prince William Times from 2006-2015 before working as the news editor of the Montgomery County Sentinel (Md.) from 2015-2016.
Danica also spent 3.5 years covering state and federal campaigns for The Hotline in Washington, D.C. from 2009-2013 and 1.3 years writing about the yoga industry for a non-profit organization from 2013-2014. In 2017, Danica ran for the 13th District of the Virginia House of Delegates, won a four-way Democratic primary, and then unseated a 13-term Republican incumbent who described himself as the “chief homophobe” of Virginia to become the first out-and-seated transgender state legislator in American history. She is now serving her third term, representing western Prince William County and the City of Manassas Park.
Away from journalism and politics, Danica spent 12 years fronting heavy metal bands from 2005-2017 and ran her own mobile yoga studio set to a heavy metal soundtrack in 2014. She is also the author of her memoir, “Burn the Page.” (Viking/PRH)