Amanda Jaquez is a senior associate with the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Atlanta Civic Site. Jaquez manages the Neighborhood Transformation portfolio, with investments focused on affordable housing, community safety and resident and youth engagement on Atlanta’s south side. Previously, she led large urban redevelopment programs, community-building work and national arts funding initiatives, respectively, as the executive director of the Clearwater Florida Community Redevelopment Agency. She was also a planning director for the city of Decatur, Georgia, and arts program officer for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. While working for the city of Decatur, she led the first transportation planning process in the United States that applied a health equity lens to designing and prioritizing transportation improvements to achieve better health outcomes for residents.
Jaquez received a master’s degree from Georgia State University and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Agnes Scott College. She is a member of Leadership ICMA (2010) and Leadership DeKalb (2011). In recognition of her work in urban planning and as a choreographer, she was named a Creative Community Fellow by National Arts Strategies in 2014.
