Lorelei Atalie Vargas

Lorelei Atalie Vargas has over three decades of experience in the nonprofit and government sectors, where she has focused on crucial issues of child and family well-being: physical health, substance abuse, mental health, education, child care, and food security. She has served as chief community engagement officer at Trinity Church Wall Street, developing and leading a local initiative with a holistic approach to address the well-being of communities throughout New York City. Lorelei has served as deputy commissioner of child and family welfare with the City of New York, where she developed and managed the country’s first child welfare division dedicated to using a two-generation approach to strengthen programs, leverage existing resources, and employ families’ innate resources. Prior to that appointment, Lorelei served as deputy commissioner of early childhood education and care for the City of New York; she led the nation’s largest publicly funded child care system, which served the needs of nearly 110,000 children with an annual budget of one billion dollars. There she led reforms that expanded access to child care and improved its quality.

Lorelei earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bryn Mawr College, where she currently serves on the Board of Trustees. She also holds two Master’s degrees, one in Public Policy and the other in Public Administration and Policy, both from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. Lorelei was named a Pahara Fellow (2017) for her work on equity in education and an Ascend Fellow (2018) for her leadership in developing two-generation systems, both from the Aspen Institute, where she serves as a member of the Aspen Global Network. In 2020, Lorelei was included on New York’s City and State magazine’s “Responsible 100” list in recognition of her thought leadership in driving transformative social change.