Aliyya Shelley Mattos- Bio
Aliyya Shelley Mattos is as comfortable teaching a class on life skills to a group of teenagers in rural Latin America as at her desk in San Rafael, California. It is this ease, coupled with her passion for leveling the playing field through education that drives her work with the PaperSeed Foundation.
Aliyya specializes in multi-sector collaboration to increase educational achievement, break down gender barriers and create a culture of philanthropy in business that supports sustainable, grassroots development work. She has more than fifteen years experience in the fields of education, international development, girls' empowerment and gender-based violence prevention. Her experience includes working to mitigate sexual harassment and violence on the University of California, Berkeley campus, improving access to quality education for low-income students with Aspire Public Schools, empowering and educating indigenous girls with the Population Council and serving as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala for three years.
Aliyya is adamant that every child deserves access to quality education regardless of race, creed, nationality, gender or socio-economic status, and holds an audacious belief that together we can change the course of history for the 58M children who are out of school and 200M children who are in school, but not learning. She is the Board President of the Angel Island Conservancy, on the Advisory Board of Girl Rising India, a steering committee member of the International Education Funders Group and a member of Central Compact on Learning Donor Network supported by the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. Aliyya holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and is pursuing a M.B.A from the Johnson School of Business at Cornell University. She has studied social entrepreneurship, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility at Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business and the University of Cambridge.