Orietta (she/her/ella) is the Director of the Roger Arliner Young (RAY) Diversity Fellowship. Orietta has always been passionate about conservation and the environment. Her experiences on the margins of the mainstream, abroad and in the U.S., has informed the way she travels through life—seeking justice and equity via BIPOC liberation, focused within the conservation and environmental movements.

Orietta is an ELP National Fellow (2021); an ANS Environmental Champion (2022); co-founder of Amplify the Future and the Black and Latinx Birders Scholarship/Birders Fund; and is a trustee at Manoment. She holds a B.A. in Literature from New York Institute of Technology, an M.A. in Postcolonial Literary Theory from Stockholms Universitet, and has both undergraduate and graduate coursework in geographic information systems and environmental biology from Hood College.

In her free time she tinkers with the latest in tech-media, reads, takes continuing education courses, spends time with her daughter and their three dogs (Poochies, Princesa, y Frijolita), swims, skates, plays the upright bass, and volunteers in her communities.