“Being a part of Design Impact’s translocal mission is a tremendous opportunity to be a catalyst through multi-sector partnerships that inform policies, practices and conditions driving inequities for BIPOC communities across multiple issues. Mitigating structural racism and barriers, while cultivating local assets with community driven strategies are imperative for authentic, meaningful and sustainable social change.”

Theresa is a Genizara descendent, native to New Mexico, and a mother of four children and one granddaughter. She is also a first-generation college student, who was formerly incarcerated and homeless. Prior to joining the Design Impact team, she was living in the Bay Area for five years and in her previous role as Executive Director of Centro Legal de la Raza, she was a champion for low wage workers’, tenants’ and immigrants’ rights in Fruitvale, Oakland, Alameda County and throughout California.

In various executive, administrative, organizing, and consultancy roles, her professional focus for the past two decades has been to address some of the most complex and urgent issues related to the health and wellbeing of Indigenous, Latinx, and Black youth and families. She seeks to build intergenerational and intercultural bridges and leadership through transformative policy-making and leveraging resources to advance services and systemic change for communities impacted by violence, injustice, and inequities.

Theresa will lead the Design Impact consulting team through her lived experience to imagine how we can become an integral part of the broader racial, social and economic justice movement to ensure that communities of color around the country are defining and living into their visions for their own liberation. Read more about Theresa on the Design Impact website.