Nubia Peña
Senior Advisor - Equity & Opportunity, Office of Gov. Spencer J. Cox; Director, Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs
2023
Ms. Nubia Peña is the Senior Advisor on Equity and Opportunity to Governor Cox and the Director for the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs where their mission is to promote an inclusive climate for Utah’s growing diverse community through training, policy and research efforts, outreach and reinvestment initiatives, and youth leadership development. Ms. Peña is immensely grateful for the extensive experience acquired during the past 15 years working as a community organizer, ally, and policy advocate for underrepresented populations. She has the great opportunity to facilitate dialogues amongst local and national leaders on complex topics of inclusion and justice working to create equitable access for historically underserved communities.
Ms. Peña is a proud former member of the zealous team at the Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys where she advocated for youth rights during detention and delinquency proceedings. She is certified by the National Juvenile Defender Center as a Juvenile Training Immersion Program facilitator. In addition, Ms. Peña is a national consultant dedicated to bringing awareness to intersections of trauma and the School-to-Prison Pipeline, an epidemic that targets our most vulnerable youth by streamlining them into the juvenile justice system. She also served as adjunct faculty at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.
Ms. Peña has actively sought to bring awareness to issues of interpersonal and community violence through her professional endeavors and personal faith-based initiatives. She has a decade of experience assisting survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, and violent crimes as a Law Enforcement Victim Advocate. Ms. Peña served as the Training and Prevention Education Specialist at the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault (UCASA) for over a decade where she developed trainings on Youth Advocacy for Trafficked Survivors, Social Justice in Prevention Efforts, and Sexual Harassment in the #MeToo Era.
During the unprecedented pandemic, Ms. Peña was assigned by Governor Gary R. Herbert to oversee the Multicultural Advisory Committee of Utah’s COVID-19 Response in partnership with Byron Russell and Ze Min Xiao. The Committee of frontline and state agency leaders worked within existing frameworks to amplify efforts to alleviate the growing disparities in food security, housing and social services, economic sustainability, communications, language accessibility, digital equity, and health access. The model has been nationally and locally uplifted as an example of culturally responsive cross-sector collaboration.
Ms. Peña received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law in May 2016. During that year, she was selected as one of 25 law students in the nation to be recognized and highlighted for her social justice activism in the National Jurist, a leading news source in legal education. She was also selected as the recipient of the National Juvenile Justice Network 2019 Emerging Leader Award due to her longstanding commitment to youth rights, empowerment, and leadership development. Ms. Peña was named in Utah Business Magazine’s 2020 40 Under 40 award recipients, recognized among the 2020 Heroes for Utah Philanthropy Day, selected as Sundance Film Festival 2021 Women’s Leadership Celebration honorees and awarded the Utah Business Magazine’s Living Color recognition for service in driving equity and inclusion in the state. In 2022, she was named the recipient of the Utah Minority Bar Association (UMBA) Jimi Mitsunaga Excellence in the Law Award for significantly contributing to and promoting the provision of legal services to underserved communities, excelling in the practice of law, and contributing to UMBA’s mission of inclusive social impact. Most recently, Ms. Peña was selected as a 2023 Presidential Leaders Scholars, a national development experience that hones leadership capabilities through interactions with former U.S. Presidents, key administration officials, world-renowned academics, and business and civic leaders.
To me, Eradicate Hate was the most important gathering of 2021 for those of us who work on issues related to domestic extremism and organized hate. The Summit uniquely combined a variety of perspectives, including experts, civil society representatives, politicians and policymakers, and the families and loved ones of victims. Eradicate Hate has the important mission of standing against the rising tide of hate and extremism in our society, and it’s an honor to be able to support this mission.
