Cori Schumacher is an American surfer, activist, and former elected official best known as a three-time Women’s World Longboard Champion (2000, 2001, 2010). Raised in a surfing family in Southern California, she entered her first competition at age 12 and built an elite career that began in shortboarding before redefining women’s longboarding on the world stage.

A former member of the U.S. teams for the International Surfing Association in 1994 and 1996, Schumacher also won the 1995 Pan-American Championships. After a hiatus, she returned with major victories including the Linda Benson Roxy Jam, the Women’s Longboard Pipeline Pro, and back-to-back ASP North American titles in 2008 and 2009. In 2011, while reigning world champion, she made headlines by boycotting the ASP Women’s Longboard World Tour over human-rights concerns.

Beyond competition, Schumacher is known for using her platform to drive change. She led a viral campaign challenging the sexualization of female surfers, contributed to the Critical Surf Studies Reader, and helped shape California’s “Equal Pay for Equal Play” law. A former Carlsbad City Council member and the city’s first openly LGBTQ+ elected official, she now works in labor leadership. Fun fact: she says longboarding taught her the patience that later defined her political career.