Dawn is the Assistant Majority Leader for Policy and Research, the Assembly appointee to the Ocean Protection Council, the inaugural chair of the California Legislative Central Coast Caucus, and the President of the California Legislative Central Coast Caucus Foundation. She chairs the Assembly Select Committee on Offshore Wind Energy in California and the Assembly Select Committee on Serving Students with Disabilities.

A special education teacher who began teaching in public schools over 20 years ago, Dawn holds a Master of Arts (MA) in special education from San Francisco State University. She has teaching credentials in elementary education, secondary education and special education and is fluent in Spanish. Dawn's long record of community involvement includes co-founding the Women's March in San Luis Obispo and being a Planned Parenthood Central Coast Action Fund board member. In 2018, she won her first elected office to the Morro Bay City Council, and served from 2018 to 2022. Dawn has achieved many firsts.

She is the first Democrat to represent the majority of San Luis Obispo County in the State Assembly since 1947. She is also the first Democrat from San Luis Obispo County to serve in the State Assembly since 1922, and the first Democratic woman ever to hold this seat.

Dawn and her husband Marcus have raised two children on the Central Coast. They have two rescue fur babies, a tabby cat named Oppenheimer and a Chow dog named Beef.