Featured Alumni

Nate Begay
Master of Community and Regional Planning, 2019

Nate Begay is the Public Lands Transportation Fellow at Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge in Albuquerque, NM. He graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2016 with a Bachelors in Environmental Planning and Design and a Masters in Community and Regional Planning in 2019. In addition to graduate school, he has dedicated much of his professional career to working on public lands, including work with the National Park Service (Canyon de Chelly National Monument and Salinas National Monument) and with the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps (Steamboat Springs, CO) on their conservation corps youth crew. Nate is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and is a member of the Towering House Clan (Kinyaa'áanii), born for the Red Running into Water Clan (Táchii'nii) from Gallup, New Mexico.

Featured Alumni

Angelina Grey
Master of Community and Regional Planning, 2017

I am Big Water and Towering House; Tangle Clan and Black Sheep. I am Diné originally from Vanderwagon, in rural west-central New Mexico. I completed the master’s program in Community and Regional Planning (CRP) in 2017. Upon completion of the program, I gained employment with the Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments (NWNMCOG) in Gallup, NM. NWNMCOG oversees the tri-counties in the northwest region of the state: San Juan County, McKinley County, and Cibola County. COGs are quasi-governmental regional planning agencies, seven organizations in New Mexico, that provide technical assistance to local and member governments. While my primary focus is the McKinley County region, I also provide assistance to neighboring counties.

Featured Alumni

Andrea Plaza
Master of Community and Regional Planning/Master of Latin American Studies, 2005

Andrea Plaza is a 29-year resident of New Mexico with roots in Colombia by way of North Carolina. She is a CRP and Latin American Studies graduate from 1995 and has focused her career on economic development opportunities for Latin women and immigrants. Andrea is the founding director of Encuentro, a community-based nonprofit with a mission to transform New Mexico into a thriving community for all of its residents by engaging with Latino immigrant families in educational and career development opportunities that build skills for economic and social justice. As part of its offerings, Encuentro provides a comprehensive Home Health Aide program tailored to the needs and experiences of Latinx immigrants as they relate to educational training, economic opportunity and leadership development.

Featured Alumni

Sandra Ortsman
Master of Community and Regional Planning, 2005

I started my business six years ago, after working as the Associate Director of Enlace Comunitario, a local immigrants’ rights domestic violence nonprofit for nine years. My business primarily serves social justice nonprofits and philanthropic foundations. I do a mix of participatory program design, grant writing, fundraising, evaluation, training, project management, and communication. I see my number one talent as being able to synthesize big ideas into actionable, operationalized plans. I help people with really big ideas figure out how to implement their vision.

Featured Alumni

Renee Villarreal
Master of Community and Regional Planning, 2006

In a four-way candidate race for an open seat, Renee Villarreal was elected to the City Council in March 2016. She is a native of Santa Fe and multi-generational New Mexican, and is deeply committed to community work centered on equity, social and gender justice, and self-determination. She has a Master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of New Mexico, and worked as a Community Planner for Santa Fe County over seven years, advocating for traditional and indigenous land-based communities. Renee also has extensive experience working in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector, serving in a program director capacity for over seven years, and has a strong sense of statewide and municipal issues affecting underserved and marginalized communities. Currently she works as the Program Co-Director for NewMexicoWomen.Org, the only program and fund in New Mexico that works to advance opportunities for women and girls statewide.