Alumni Profile
“One of the most valuable lessons I learned from Hunter UPP was to understand and accept paradox in my work. Often times there are conflicting realities that coexist and cannot be ignored. My work is fueled by the question of how can we as urbanists become productive, empathetic and intentional within spaces of paradox to create realistic but beneficial results.”
Alyana Roxas (MUP ’21) was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. As a First-Generation American, she witnessed her family’s relentless work ethic and drive to craft a successful life in a new country, and this experience influenced her curiosity about the relationship between the built environment and quality of life.
While in the Urban Planning program at Hunter, Alyana drew upon her family’s practice of sharing meals together as the main way to show love to one another amidst financial hardship and identified a passion for improving food policy and food systems with an equitable urban planning scope.
Alyana is currently working at the New York City Economic Development Corporation as a Senior Associate in the Portfolio Management Division. She is the sole Asset Manager overseeing the strategy of the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center in The Bronx, which is the largest food distribution hub in the nation and provides 4.5 billion pounds of food annually to 22 million customers in the New York Metropolitan Region. She recently co-wrote a grant for Federal funding to support the redevelopment of the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market, which was awarded $110M from the Federal Infrastructure Bill—one of the largest non-emergency federal grants that New York City has received to date.
She is proud to represent Hunter and the CUNY system in her work to strengthen The City’s critical assets in the food supply chain to ensure that all New Yorkers have affordable, equitable, and dependable access to healthy and nutritious food.
“One of the most valuable lessons I learned from Hunter UPP was to understand and accept paradox in my work. Often times there are conflicting realities that coexist and cannot be ignored. My work is fueled by the question of how can we as urbanists become productive, empathetic and intentional within spaces of paradox to create realistic but beneficial results.”
Alyana Roxas (MUP ’21) was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. As a First-Generation American, she witnessed her family’s relentless work ethic and drive to craft a successful life in a new country, and this experience influenced her curiosity about the relationship between the built environment and quality of life.
While in the Urban Planning program at Hunter, Alyana drew upon her family’s practice of sharing meals together as the main way to show love to one another amidst financial hardship and identified a passion for improving food policy and food systems with an equitable urban planning scope.
Alyana is currently working at the New York City Economic Development Corporation as a Senior Associate in the Portfolio Management Division. She is the sole Asset Manager overseeing the strategy of the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center in The Bronx, which is the largest food distribution hub in the nation and provides 4.5 billion pounds of food annually to 22 million customers in the New York Metropolitan Region. She recently co-wrote a grant for Federal funding to support the redevelopment of the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market, which was awarded $110M from the Federal Infrastructure Bill—one of the largest non-emergency federal grants that New York City has received to date.
She is proud to represent Hunter and the CUNY system in her work to strengthen The City’s critical assets in the food supply chain to ensure that all New Yorkers have affordable, equitable, and dependable access to healthy and nutritious food.