Mónica Villalta Joins AIR as Director of Diversity and Inclusion
Washington, D.C. – Mónica L. Villalta, who served as Director of Diversity Programs for Kaiser Permanente of the Mid Atlantic States, has joined the American Institutes for Research (AIR) as its Director of Diversity and Inclusion. In this role, she will guide the nonprofit research organization’s continuing efforts to enhance its services by diversifying its staff’s knowledge and experiences.
As Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Villalta assumes a leading role in the design, implementation and analysis of AIR’s diversity initiatives. She also serves on AIR’s Diversity Advisory Committee.
“Diversity is vital to our success,” says David Myers, President and Chief Executive Officer of AIR. “A strong understanding of diversity and cultural competency is key to AIR achieving its mission – improving people's lives, particularly the disadvantaged – and having Monica join AIR moves us another step closer to our objective."
Villalta, who joined Kaiser Permanente in 2007, directed its regional Diversity Programs Department to ensure implementation of local and national strategy and monitor and ensure compliance in cultural and linguistic competence in workforce, care, community and marketplace settings.
“Mónica’s wealth of knowledge, experience, and expertise will help us continue to bring together a talented and diverse staff to help AIR conduct and apply the best behavioral and social science research and evaluation and create an even more dynamic workplace” said Mark Fanning, Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Administration.
Before working with Kaiser Permanente, Villalta was senior policy advisor to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth, Family and Elders in Washington, D.C., and was deputy director for the D.C. Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs. She also served as a Children and Family Fellow with the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, Md., and was Director of Programs for Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care in Washington, D.C.
She holds a Master of Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley, has a B.S. in International Business Administration from the University of Maryland at College Park, and has completed the Executive Education Program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Seminar on International Institutions at the American University in Paris, France. She was a 2008 National Hispana Leadership Institute (NHLI) Fellow.
About AIR
Established in 1946, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., the American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonpartisan not-for-profit organization that conducts behavioral and social science research and delivers technical assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health, education and workforce productivity. For more information, visit www.air.org.
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