Distinguished Alumna Award
Nelba Márquez-Greene is the founder of The Ana Grace Project. She founded The Ana Grace Project in 2013 as a response to the school shooting in Sandy Hook, Conn., in 2012, which took the life of her daughter, Ana Grace Márquez-Greene. The Ana Grace Project is dedicated to promoting love, community, and connection for every child and family through three lead initiatives: partner schools, professional development, and music and the arts. She also is Director of Community Advancement at Central Connecticut State University.
Prior to founding The Ana Grace Project, Márquez-Greene was an employee of the Klingberg Family Therapy Center and an adjunct faculty member at Central Connecticut State University. She previously served as an administrative assistant for the Programma De Ministerios Hispanos and the Black Ministries Program at Hartford Seminary, as an intervention specialist with the Capitol Region Education Council, and as a resident engagement facilitator with the Institute for Community Research. She also held a private mental health practice in Hartford, Conn.
Márquez-Greene was a founding member of the Connecticut Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Diversity Committee and has served on their board of directors. Additionally, she has testified and advocated at the state and federal levels for mental health initiatives, hosted TEDx talks, and is a sought-after speaker nationally.
Márquez-Greene was featured in the 2019 release of The Book of Gutsy Women by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton and in People magazine’s October 2019 issue as one of ten “Women Changing the World.” In 2018, she was selected as one of the “100 Women of Color” and as a Young Women’s Christian Association Women’s Leadership Award recipient. Márquez-Greene was also the recipient of the Distinguished Professional Service Award in 2004 and the Service to Families Award in 2013 from the Connecticut Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
Márquez-Greene graduated from The Hartt School in 1997 with a degree in music education. She later received her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from Saint Joseph College in 2005. She lives with her husband (Jimmy Greene, ’97) and son in a Connecticut suburb and with Ana Grace in her heart.