Vanessa Aviva González-Siegel Director, LGBTQ Campus Resource Center she, her, ella, ela
Vanessa Aviva (she/ella/ela) is a native New Yorker and a proud Cuban American Queer & Transgender Woman. Previously, she served as the Associate Director of Multicultural Affairs and LGBTQ Outreach at Columbia University as the sole full-time position serving LGBTQ students since 2018. During her time at Columbia, Vanessa was also asked to serve as Interim Associate Dean of Multicultural Affairs acting as diversity officer for the undergraduate colleges. Prior to her work at Columbia, Vanessa was the inaugural Assistant Director for the Office of Diversity and Campus Engagement at Sarah Lawrence College.
Vanessa is a nationally recognized and award-winning advocate and speaker having earned awards and recognition from the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity (NCORE), the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals, Campus Pride, the Rutgers University Department of Women’s & Gender Studies, the Biden Administration, and more. She is an emerging scholar in organizational theory and TQ center(ed) diversity work as member of the national LGBTQ Participatory Action Research Collective. Outside of her full-time work, she serves on the National Council for NCORE on the Transnational/International Subcommittee and as Co-Chair of the QTPOC Caucus and a Practitioner-in-Residence for ACPA.
Outside of higher education, Vanessa serves on the Board of Directors for the New York Transgender Advocacy Group, an organization that lobbies and writes legislation that that benefits transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive people in the State & City of New York. Vanessa is also public speaker managed by SpeakOut, the Institute for Democratic Education.
Vanessa received both of her bachelor’s degrees from Rutgers University-New Brunswick in Women’s Studies and Social Justice Education, her master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University in Higher & Postsecondary Education, and is currently an Ed.D. student at the City University of New York in Organizational Leadership, Development, and Change. In her (limited) free time, Vanessa is a foodie, beach bum, housewives stan, avid solo world traveler (28 countries & counting), and loves to cook and entertain people in her home.
Vanessa has a passion for serving community and prides herself on relationship building and collaboration and brings a strong understanding of intersectional approaches to LGBTQ+ work in higher education.