Aliya is the portfolio director for US Health, managing all health-related programmatic initiatives at the local, state, and national level, in addition to the foundation’s commitments in the Greater Austin medical community through Dell Medical School, Dell Children’s Medical Center, Dell Pediatric Research Institute, and Dell Seton Medical Center. Her role at the foundation leverages both her clinical experience and understanding that access to health often occurs outside of clinical settings.
Aliya joined the foundation in 2008 and leads programs to improve health equity across a variety of contexts and partners. These include national district-level efforts focused on coordinated school health and launching GO! Austin/VAMOS! Austin (GAVA) – a hyper-local, place-based coalition led by community organizers building improved access to health in neighborhood environments. She’s also led food systems efforts to measurably improve availability, affordability, and access healthy food at the local, state, and national level, and community-centered efforts to address non-medical drivers of health in partnership with community members, community-based organizations, health care providers, and health care payers.
Aliya completed undergraduate degrees in biology and economics at Swarthmore College, medical school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, pediatrics residency and chief residency at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, and fellowship training as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also earned a master’s degree in health policy research. In addition to her work at the foundation, Aliya is a practicing pediatrician at People’s Community Clinic in Austin and affiliate faculty in the departments of pediatrics and population health at Dell Medical School.