Foundation Staff

Sylvia A. Leal is the Senior Program Officer for Education and Economic Opportunity. She is committed to advancing student access to high-quality education from early grades through college completion and equipping them for high-wage, high-demand jobs in the region. This entails ensuring rural East Texas students have access to high-quality Pre-K and early grade programs, enabling them to meet or exceed third-grade education standards in reading and mathematics, supporting post-secondary success and workforce development for all 16–24-year-old rural East Texas residents, and fostering positive education outcomes in the region through responsive grantmaking.

She received an Associate of Arts Degree from Texas Southmost College in Brownsville, a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in School Administration from the University of Texas-Pan American, and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Houston.

Sylvia’s career spans more than 36 years of experience in education. This includes K-12 education experience as a bilingual teacher and as a curriculum specialist at Region One Education Service Center. At Region One ESC, she assisted educators across 38 school districts improve the teaching and learning capacity of students across South Texas as an Inclusion Specialist, a Science Specialist, and a GEAR UP Coordinator. She has administrative experience in higher education where she served as Associate Vice President of Student Affairs and as Vice President of Enrollment at the University of Texas Brownsville and as Associate Vice President for Student Educational Outreach at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. In that capacity, she supervised various P-16 pre-college initiatives, federal grants, testing, and other student support services that supported first-generation minority students to enter and succeed in higher education.

Dr. Leal has served on several boards and in community leadership positions. She strongly believes that equitable quality education can transform the lives of students, their families, and their communities, especially for diverse unrepresented students. Sylvia continues her lifetime work to seek and develop innovative initiatives that increase the number of first-generation students who obtain postsecondary credentials with labor market value.

Sylvia enjoys cooking, gardening, and spending time with her family.