MALIA VILLEGAS

VP of Community Investments
Afognak Native Corporation

NACA SECRETARY

Dr. Malia Villegas joined Afognak Native Corporation in January 2017 as Vice President of Corporate Affairs, where she oversees government relations, advocacy, public relations, marketing, and impact measurement. As an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Village Corporation, Afognak is ranked 7th on the Top 49ers list of Alaskan companies (2018 & 2019). Afognak Native Corporation, Alutiiq, LLC, and its family of companies provide an exceptional track record of services in the government and commercial sectors worldwide, including: leasing; facility services; timber; engineering; information technology; security; logistics, operations & maintenance; and youth services.

Malia is an enrolled member of the Native Village of Afognak in Alaska, where she also serves on the Tribal Council. She is Sugpiaq/Alutiiq (Alaska Native) with family from Kodiak and Afognak Islands in Alaska and O’ahu and Lana’i in Hawai’i.

Malia is honored to serve on the Board of Directors of NACA to facilitate cross-organization and intertribal collaborative policy solutions that strengthen Native enterprise. She also serves on the Tribal Nations Advisory Council of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society working on intertribal solutions in the domains of workforce development; the interface of science, culture, and small business; and Indigenous technology.

Prior to joining Afognak Native Corporation, Malia's past experience includes serving as the Director of the National Congress of American Indians Policy Research Center (2011-2016); co-Chair of the National Institutes for Health (NIH) Tribal Consultation Advisory Committee (2014-2016); Principal Investigator of several federal and private grants including those at the National Science Foundation and NIH; Post-Doctoral Fellow at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, as a part of an international evaluation team reviewing the first, national Indigenous school reform effort there (2010-2011); Fulbright Dissertation Fellow at the University of Auckland in New Zealand studying the effort to graduate 500 Māori PhDs in five years (2008); and researcher at First Alaskans Institute in Anchorage, Alaska (2004-2006). She co-edited a volume (with S. R. Neugebauer & K. R. Venegas) entitled, Indigenous Knowledge and Education: Sites of Struggle, Strength, and Survivance (Harvard University Press, 2008).

Malia received her Doctorate in Education and Master's degree in Education from Harvard University and dual Bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity from Stanford University.