María Cristina Pacheco Alcalá is the Campus Program Manager at the National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities, a project of Casa de Esperanza. She oversees project management, grant compliance and evaluation, develops and facilitates training, and provide technical assistance to higher education institutions across the country, including the territories.

Prior to this position, she has taught in the Social Sciences and Criminal Justice Department at the University of Puerto Rico at Carolina and served as a consultant for the Puerto Rico Department of Family on federal affairs. She has also been doing gender-based prevention and intervention work at the University of Puerto Rico since 2006 and still oversees the Gender Equity Program at the University of Puerto Rico at Carolina. She holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology with specialty of family therapy, and a certificate on grants management.

As a self-starter with an entrepreneur spirit, María Cristina owns Cucina 135, a kitchen rental to support economic development and self-sustainability efforts in Puerto Rico where individuals rent the kitchen to cook and sell their products.

María Cristina areas of expertise include gender violence prevention, Title IX, grants management and human trafficking.