Dr. Noemi Custodia-Lora was recently named to a national advisory board.

Dr. Noemi Custodia Lora, Northern Essex Community College’s vice president of the Lawrence Campus and community relations, was named to a national equity advisory panel charged with creating policy and strategy so every worker has the opportunity for gainful employment.

The Racial Equity National Advisory Panel is part of the National Skills Coalition (NSC), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC. NSC’s 28,000 members come from across the 50 states and Puerto Rico, and are drawn from business, labor, community colleges, community-based organizations, and the public workforce system.

Custodia-Lora is one of 23 individuals nationwide selected to serve on the equity advisory panel. Her “deep professional expertise in higher education, including her leadership at NECC in establishing new and innovative partnerships to better serve immigrants and students of color, was a primary factor in her selection,” according to the selection committee.

Custodia-Lora, herself an immigrant, said she is honored to be selected to sit on the panel.

“I want to help advance policies and agenda promoting opportunities for professional immigrants currently on low-wage, low-pay jobs to upgrade their degree/work level,” she said.

The coalition’s vision is to grow an economy by investing in people so that every worker and every industry has the skills to compete and prosper. The coalition works to advance state and federal policies that support these goals.

The primary goal of the equity panel is to create a diverse group of education, business, labor, community-based, and public sector partners to guide and advance NSC’s agenda on creating a racially inclusive workforce with equitable pathways to good skilled jobs for immigrants, English learners, and workers of color.

Custodia-Lora, a native of Puerto Rico and a scientist with a Ph.D. from Boston University, joined Northern Essex in 2003 as a faculty member of the Natural Sciences Department. In 2011, she was appointed assistant dean of Foundational Studies and Liberal Arts & Sciences.

She is a founding member of the ESL Social/Learning Club which is an initiative aimed at attracting more English as a Second Language students into the disciplines (and ultimately careers) of STEM.

Before coming to NECC, Custodia – Lora was a post-doctoral fellow at Tufts Medical School in Boston. She holds a bachelor’s in biology from the Universidad de Puerto Rico and a PhD in physiology-endocrinology from Boston University. She was raised in Puerto Rico but both her parents are from the Dominican Republic.

For additional information contact Custodia-Lora at ncustodialora@necc.mass.edu