Sylvia Almanza

Sylvia Almanza is a Program Specialist in Executive Education at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. As Program Specialist, Sylvia collaborates with the Thunderbird Executive Education team to ensure that Executive Education projects and programs are successfully completed on time and at the highest level of client satisfaction.

Prior to joining Thunderbird, Sylvia worked across several fields including academic, local government, and private industry. Sylvia has experience conducting quantitative and qualitative research, including national health and behavioral studies for the Centers Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and State and National health departments across the US. In addition to health and behavioral research, Sylvia has also worked managing Market Research accounts, and translating Spanish questionnaires for Nielsen Consumer Reports. Sylvia has also worked in social services and health care. In her prior position, Sylvia managed staff across multiple hospitals in Southern California and Hawaii.

Sylvia has a Bachelors in Arts in International Relations and Portuguese from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she emphasized in developing economies and Latin America studies. Sylvia is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and conversational in German and Italian.

In her free time Sylvia enjoys traveling, and working with animals. She has worked as a dog (and cat) trainer/behaviorist for almost 20 years. Sylvia uses her travel experiences to attend behavior conferences around the world, and to volunteer (and pet sit) abroad. Sylvia has volunteered with animal sanctuaries in Thailand and Spain.