Adriana Rodriguez joined the Packard Foundation in 2022 as a flexible program assistant (FPA) under Grants Data and Operations, and is currently a Program Associate for the U.S. Racial Justice Initiative. As an FPA, Adriana supported various Initiative teams throughout the Foundation, finding appreciation for the challenge of adapting to different teams’ working styles. In her current role as Program Associate, she is responsible for ensuring efficiency for the Foundation’s Racial Justice grantmaking, and learning collaboratively to support the development of the new initiative.
Adriana is a graduate of Brown University, where she majored in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Political Science. Within these studies, Adriana researched and wrote an honors thesis on the histories of community care and mutual aid based interventions led by Puerto Rican diaspora and archipelago populations, to combat socio-political crises. During undergrad, Adriana studied abroad with the Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad in La Habana, Cuba, where she was was able to study U.S. intervention policy, the Caribbean tourism industry, and revolutionary Cuban history with some of the most decorated scholars on the island. Adriana has also interned at various nonprofits focused on affordable housing policy and youth unemployment. She is passionate about global solidarity movements, shifting power and resources to those who need it most, and community building.