Natalie Orozco

(she, her, hers)

Leader, Applied Research & Equitable Evaluation

Natalie’s motivation to work in education policy and program improvement comes from her love for her ancestors and her firsthand experience of how policies and cultures influence access to education. Her grandmothers—from Mexico and Colombia—ended their educations at grade 4. Her mother was one of three girls in her hometown to go to middle school and emigrated to the U.S. so Natalie could have more opportunities. Natalie hopes to help our partners identify barriers in our education systems and to support and strengthen mindful, equitable, inclusive, data-driven leadership to better serve our communities and our world.

Natalie has had a diverse career so far. She worked at a small research firm in Washington, D.C., and in Silicon Valley at Meta and YouTube—where she also participated in the Latino Leadership Board Academy, an initiative to put Latino leaders on boards in the Bay Area. She helped lead a team of 30+ people in building an online learning platform and curricula for the Federal Reserve in San Francisco. From there, she joined the Glide Foundation and started the Tenderloin Data Group with other research and evaluation practitioners. She has sat for the last four years on the board of Citizens Climate Lobby, a civic engagement organization that works to mitigate the effects of climate change. She also served on Oakland’s COVID Rapid Response Task Force. In these latter roles, she has looked for ways to bring her experience in program evaluation and strategy to local politics.

Most recently, Natalie became a new mom and moved out of the Bay Area. She is thrilled to have found an organization that centers equity and look forward to collaborating as a mentor, coach, facilitator, program evaluator, and researcher with all the smart and talented people of Education Northwest.

Education

• B.A., Psychology and Latin American/Latinx Studies, University of California Santa Cruz
• M.Ed., Human Development and Psychology, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Certification in Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership, University of Washington

I dream of going to...

Japan

If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be...

Near a beach

If I was stranded on a deserted island, I would bring...

A sarong