Carlos Rivas
Carlos Rivas, born and raised in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, is currently the Director of Public Affairs with The Civilian Office of Police Accountability. Carlos joined COPA in June 2022 after serving eight years at Noble Schools. A lifelong educator, Carlos works to build connections in communities across Chicago to build trust and expand COPA’s reach in underserved communities.
As COPA’s Director of Public Affairs, Carlos’s primary role is community engagement. Since joining COPA, Carlos has forged many partnerships with community-based organizations in priority areas for the agency, including many Latino communities. Engagement events increased exponentially and is on track to conduct outreach in each of Chicago’s 77 community areas. In his short time at COPA, over 8,000 Chicagoans were engaged in 2022, and 2023 is on track to reach over 20,000 through his outreach efforts.
In August 2022, Carlos was appointed to a Mayoral Detail to support new arrivals in the early part of the migrant crisis including providing interpretation services, client intake, welcoming migrants as they arrived in Chicago on buses from Texas. Carlos was a hands-on leader setting up shelters, providing support at the Multi-Agency Resource Center, and helping reunite migrant families who arrived in Chicago. He continues to volunteer his time on evenings and weekends to meet migrant buses from Texas serving as a critical support to our city’s Office of Emergency Management & Communications team.
Previously, Carlos served as the Alumni Supports & External Affairs Manager at UIC College Prep, a Noble School. He joined the staff at Noble in 2014 as a Spanish instructor. Later, he joined the College Team as an Alumni Counselor supporting many of the same students he taught. During his time as Alumni Counselor the 6 year college graduation rate for alumni broke 50% for the first time in network history. Additionally, year after year Carlos’s caseload had highest in network college retention leading to many choice-filled lives for students of color and low-income students. As the External Affairs manager, he was responsible for building parent and family engagement. Carlos was successful in building parent programming at the school to better support families and became an ally sought out by families in tough situations.
Carlos is a licensed teacher, obtained his Bachelor’s in Government and Spanish from Claremont McKenna College and holds a Master’s in teaching from Dominican University and a Master’s in Education Leadership: Higher Education Administration from Northeastern Illinois University. He was recognized during Latino Heritage Month 2022 by Mayor Lori Lightfoot for his work supporting new arrivals during the migrant crisis, awarded NegociosNow 40 Under 40 Latinos 2022. He is a Fulbright Scholar (Argentina ’13) and currently serves on the board of the Fulbright Chicago Chapter.
