Ana Alvarez – Deputy General Manager of the East Bay Regional Parks District
Dr. Ana M. Alvarez serves as the Deputy General Manager of the East Bay Regional Park District, the largest local park agency in the United States. Ana’s professional accomplishments demonstrate a strong acumen for proactive and meaningful civic engagement, community building based on public trust and sustainability planning based on science, which she believes are paramount for the vibrancy of healthy communities. She contributes to the profession by ushering the next generation of parks and recreation directors across the nation by serving as faculty in the Directors’ School for the National Recreation & Park Association, focusing on conservation, the role of local governments on issues of othering and belonging and strategically positioning open space as natural capital for nature-based solutions.
Closer to home, Ana contributes to the stewardship of the University of California’s Natural Reserve System, comprised of a network of 756,000 acres of natural areas throughout California, by serving on its Board of Councilors. She also serves as the Vice Chair of the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority’s Advisory Committee. Ana holds a doctoral degree in policy, planning and development from the University of Southern California. Her doctoral dissertation focused on San Francisco’s Park and Open Space Sustainability Plan, establishing climate change adaptation strategies, for which Mayor Ed Lee bestowed upon her San Francisco’s Green Pioneer Award