Diana Rodriguez Ross is the Executive Director at the Mid-City Community Advocacy Network (Mid-City CAN) in the San Diego, California community of City Heights. Mid-City CAN is a community collaborative of thousands of residents of City Heights and non-resident allies in the fields of nonprofit, government, and faith. Mid-City CAN focuses on building community power and developing resident leaders to advocate for change. Under Diana’s leadership Mid-City CAN has executed successful community organizing campaigns to establish the San Diego Region’s first no-cost youth bus pass, increase recreation through Skate Parks, improve school lunch nutrition, and restorative justice programs to provide alternatives to the incarceration and punitive discipline practice affecting Black and Latino youth. Diana is routinely cited by mainstream local and national media, including but not limited to: KPBS, Univision, UT San Diego, Voice of San Diego, Network Television, and Healthy California.

Prior to Mid-City CAN Diana led collaboratives and coalitions in the communities of Southern California and Mexico. She worked with the Los Angeles Refugee Immigrant Training Employment program in Los Angeles, US-Mexico Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition (a bi-national anti-human trafficking collaborative), and the San Diego Refugee Forum. In addition to her work with collaboratives, she is the former Director of Refugee Employment Services in City Heights and began her career in multi-country medical camps with Rotary International’s Polio Plus program in Ethiopia and Nigeria.

Diana has college honors and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in Sociology and International Development where she was also awarded the prestigious Riordan Fellowship at UCLA’s Andersen School of Management. Diana has a master’s degree from the University of San Diego in Nonprofit Leadership and Management. She is a former Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. In 2010 she received the Springfield College School of Human Services Community Service Award for demonstrating leadership in service to humanity and was recognized in 2012 by the California State Assembly for her work on legislation promoting health equity and improving women’s lives. She is a National City native who speaks fluent English, Arabic, and Spanish.

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