Biography
Ms. Nubia Peña is the Director for the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs where their
mission is to promote an inclusive climate for Utah's growing diverse community through training,
outreach and youth leadership development. Ms. Peña is immensely grateful for the extensive
experience acquired during the past 15 years working as a community organizer, advocate, and ally
for marginalized populations. She has the great opportunity to facilitate dialogues amongst local and
national leaders on complex topics of inclusivity and diversity working to create equitable access in
services and resources for disenfranchised communities. Ms. Peña also designs and implements
various workshops on creating inclusive, culturally relevant, and gender-specific programming for
at-risk communities, specifically when working with youth and adolescents.
Ms. Peña is a proud former member of the zealous team at the Utah Juvenile Defender
Attorneys where she advocated for youth rights during detention and delinquency proceedings. She
is also certified by the National Juvenile Defender Center as a Juvenile Training Immersion
Program facilitator. In addition, Ms. Peña is a national consultant dedicated to bringing awareness
to intersections of trauma and the School-to-Prison Pipeline, an epidemic that targets our most
vulnerable youth by streamlining them into the juvenile justice system.
Ms. Peña has actively sought to bring awareness to issues of violence and systemic
oppression through her professional endeavors and personal faith-based initiatives. She has a
decade of experience assisting survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, and
violent crimes as a Law Enforcement Victim Advocate. Since 2007, Ms. Peña has served as the
Training and Prevention Education Specialist at the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault
(UCASA) where she developed trainings on Youth Advocacy for Trafficked Survivors, Social
Justice in Prevention Efforts, and Sexual Harassment in the #MeToo Era. In addition, she is also
the founder and director of Royalty Rising Youth Ministry, a culturally relevant and gender specific
outreach initiative for at-risk and marginalized young adults.
Ms. Peña received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of
Law in May 2016. During that year, she was selected as one of 25 law students in the nation to be
recognized and highlighted for her social justice activism in the National Jurist, a leading news
source in legal education. Ms. Peña was also selected as the recipient of the National Juvenile
Justice Network 2019 Emerging Leader Award due to her longstanding commitment to youth
rights, empowerment, and leadership development. Ms. Peña was recently named as one of Utah
Business Magazine’s 2020 40 Under 40 award recipients.
Preferred Pronouns: She, her, hers