Rebecca Ávila

Rebecca Ávila directs the Retreat Programs and oversees the financial and administrative activities of the Trust. Prior to joining Sunnylands, Ávila was an assistant dean at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, where she helped launch the new and now-nationally recognized law school. Previously, she served as senior associate dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism during a period of extraordinary growth. In that position she was responsible for streamlining the administrative infrastructure of the School and managing a $55 million budget. She also spent several years as executive director of the City of Los Angeles Ethics Commission administering and enforcing campaign finance, ethics, and lobbying laws and implementing the city’s public matching funds system for local campaigns. Active in the community, Ávila is a former member of the Los Angeles Police Commission, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the ACLU of Southern California, League of Women Voters of Los Angeles, Common Cause, Center for Governmental Studies, and the Public Law Center of Orange County. She is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara and received her MPA from the University of Washington.