Dr. Carmen Orozco-Acosta is the Director of the Sustainable Communities Program at GreenLatinos. Most recently, she was the Senior Advisor to the President at Community Change, an organization focused on building the power and capacity of low-income people, especially people of color, to change the policies and institutions that affect their lives. Prior to this role, she served as the Senior Policy Advisor for the U.S. Domestic Program at Oxfam America in Washington D.C. She was the policy lead on Puerto Rico, developing advocacy, strategy, and proposals for a just recovery after-Hurricanes Irma and Maria. As a result of her advocacy work, they were successful in securing more public input in recovery and rebuilding plans in Puerto Rico and adding a gender lens to these efforts.
Previously, she has worked in Congress as legislative staff for various Members of Congress, and for the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA), where she worked with a coalition of 40+ national Latino organizations. Carmen’s passion for public service started from an early age, after attending a Latino youth legislative session in Austin, Texas near her hometown. She went on to complete her Ph.D. at the University of Notre Dame in the Department of Political Science, where she specialized in race, ethnicity, and politics in the United States. Her primary focus was on African American and Latino politics and understanding power structures and systems to better address injustice.
A proud Colombian-Mexican-American, she has always been active in her community, organizing in the regions where she has lived. Carmen is passionate about increasing the representation of communities of color in policy development and in political office and striving for equity and racial justice in public policy. In her spare time, she teaches mindfulness workshops incorporating dance, yoga, and art. She also enjoys spending time in nature, hiking, biking, and stand-up paddle boarding.
