LegiStorm

A veterans advocate has taken her four years of lobbying experience to the House.

Sarah Dean has joined the Veterans' Affairs Committee Democrats as a health professional staff member.

Dean comes from Paralyzed Veterans of America, where she worked as associate legislative director. Most recently, her lobbying issues included budget and appropriations, Social Security expansion and removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act.

After three consecutive lobbying jobs, a health expert is trying her luck on the Hill.

Kelly Nickel joins Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) as a senior policy adviser handling health, immigration and taxes, among other legislative issues.

She most recently worked for Myriad Genetics, a genetic diagnostic company, as senior manager of government affairs and patient alliances. Before that, she was a health lobbyist for Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting and the American Counseling Association.

A legislative director has left the Hill for a medical-research advocacy group.

Anna Platt is now senior manager for policy and advocacy for Research!America. The non-profit outsources its lobbying efforts, which mainly cover health-care and appropriations issues.

She comes from the office of Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.). Platt had spent more than a decade on the Hill, previously working for ex-Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). She also worked for ex-Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) during his party switch from Republican to Democrat.

A pageant queen has moved from the Hill to the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Cassie Roper is now a legislative affairs adviser at the agency.

Roper, who in 2014 won the Miss Mid-Atlantic Supranational crown, most recently worked as Rep. Duncan Hunter's (R-Calif.) military legislative assistant. Before joining Hunter's office in 2014, the NYU alum worked for retired Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.).

After years of hiring fewer and fewer women, Congress is finally reversing course.

This term, women make up 51.2 percent of staffers in the House and 50.3 percent in the Senate. In the 115th Congress, women made up 49.0 percent and 50.7 percent of House and Senate aides, respectively.

While that number has increased since last term, both chambers had more women on their payrolls a decade ago. The House reached its highest percentage of women - 51.5 percent - in the 111th Congress; the Senate's proportion peaked in the 108th at 52.9 percent. In the following years, both chambers experienced a gradual decline in the number of female staffers before hitting the House's low of 48.8 percent in the 114th and the Senate's low of 49.0 percent in the 115th.

While the overall increase in women is partly due to this term's larger number of Democratic members, who hire tend to hire more women than do their GOP counterparts, the trend also holds true among the Republican Party.

 LegiStorm has complete data on congressional staff from 2001 forward.