Cornell Alum Builds Advocacy Career
Cornell University alumna Jocelyn Vega recently accepted a position as the community impact director for the American Heart Association (AHA). Jocelyn applied for the role after being invited to travel to the White House with the AHA to advocate for the 2023 Farm Bill extension, where she met with representatives and lobbied for the renewed protections of food security programs, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (SNAP), to be signed into law.
The cause hits close to home for Jocelyn, whose parents were both farm workers.
“My mother was a child of a farmworker and was expected to contribute both by working and by taking care of her siblings,” she says. “My father’s family owned a farm, but the result was the same. From a very young age, both of my parents had to work to support their families.”
The first in her family to graduate from high school, Jocelyn regards her Posse experience as invaluable and transformative.
“I don’t think I would have gone to college without Posse. I definitely wouldn’t have gone to an Ivy League school.”
“I carry Posse with me everywhere I go,” says Jocelyn. “I don’t think I would have gone to college without Posse. I definitely wouldn’t have gone to an Ivy League school.”
Over the course of her career, Jocelyn has built a track record of advocacy in the United States and abroad that spans immigrant rights and trauma-informed care services. She brings these experiences into her current role, where she will be targeting health issues affecting Chicagoans, such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes.
Jocelyn hopes to bridge socio-cultural gaps and directly connect members of the local communities she will be serving with high-quality care and resources.
“Posse showed me the power of advocacy,” says Jocelyn. “With the support of the organization, I would not have been able to take risks that have influenced the person I am today.”
At Cornell, Jocelyn triple majored in government, sociology, and feminist, gender, and sexuality studies while also triple minoring in Latino studies, law and society, and inequality studies.
While pursuing her academic interests, Jocelyn joined the Cornell Farmworker Legal Assistant Program, becoming the first undergrad member in the initiative’s history. Following that experience, she was invited to travel to Cambodia to work abroad at the Center for Khmer Studies where she consulted on programming and facilitated relationship-building efforts between the center, Cambodian genocide survivors and veterans.
In addition to her current role at AHA, Jocelyn sits on the board of the All Stars Project of Chicago, a national nonprofit whose local chapter provides innovative development opportunities in support of neighborhoods affected by violence. She is also a recently published op-ed columnist for Chicago Business Magazine, writing in support of services for youth mental health.
“My guiding principle is to inspire others to help make lasting change.”
