Alvin Warren

Alvin is a member of Santa Clara Pueblo, a tribal nation in New Mexico, where he lives with his family.

He serves as the vice president of Career Pathways and Advocacy for the LANL Foundation. Alvin is a former cabinet secretary of Indian Affairs for the State of New Mexico, lieutenant governor of Santa Clara Pueblo and program officer for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In these roles, he has helped ensure over $130 million in state dollars flowed to tribes to build essential infrastructure, enact state legislation establishing a framework for collaborative state-tribal governmental relations, develop and sustain tribal immersion and dual language schools, establish a statewide initiative to support high school innovation, and positively transform public narratives about Indigenous peoples.

He has been involved in the restoration and protection of Indigenous lands for almost 40 years. While an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, he was asked by his Pueblo’s leaders to research Santa Clara Pueblo’s efforts to regain their lands, which culminated in a 221-page bachelor’s thesis he presented to their tribal council. In 1991, Santa Clara Pueblo hired him to establish a Land Claims / Rights Protection Program. Over the next decade, Alvin assisted his Pueblo with regaining more land than it had reacquired in a century, including enactment of two pieces of federal legislation and raising over $4.5 million dollars. He went on to support other Indigenous peoples in the United States and around the world with mapping, regaining, and protecting their lands as part of the Indigenous Communities Mapping Initiative and as the national Tribal Lands program director for Trust for Public Land.

Alvin has continued to fight for the restoration of land to Indigenous peoples as an elected and appointed tribal leader and in his personal capacity. Alvin has served on numerous boards and committees. Currently he serves on the AmeriCorps board of directors, having been appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He cofounded and is a board member of the Kha’p’o Community School, a dual-language school in his community. He serves as the vice president of the Santa Fe Indian School Board of Trustees. He’s a longtime farmer who’s actively involved in the cultural life of his tribal community. Alvin earned a BA in history from Dartmouth College and a master of public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.