Air Alliance Houston’s Executive Director Jennifer (“Jen”) Hadayia, MPA,(pronounced Huh-DIE-yuh) has been the Executive Director at Air Alliance Houston since 2021. Air Alliance Houston is the longest-running advocacy non-profit in the Houston area singularly focused on the public health impacts of air pollution. They received the 2024 Advocacy Organization of the Year Award from Powerhouse Texas. Jen has worked for over 25 years in public health and health equity with state and county health departments and non-profit organizations in five states and the District of Columbia.

Prior to leading Air Alliance Houston, Jen was senior staff at Legacy Community Health Services, Inc., the largest FQHC in the state of Texas, where she ran public health services in 16 clinics across Harris County. She was also the first-ever Health Equity Coordinator for Harris County Public Health, the county’s public health department, where she developed their first Health Equity Framework that is still in use today. Her work outside of Texas includes managing population health programs for the Northern Nevada Health District and evaluating national health disparities initiatives for the National Asian Women’s Health Organization.

Jen holds leadership positions on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Mobile Sources Technical Review Subcommittee, the Houston 2036 Task Force on Equity, the Houston-Galveston Area Council’s Regional Air Quality Advisory Committee, and the Community and Tribal Liaison Committee on Cumulative Impact for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She is also a Peer Site Visitor for the Public Health Accreditation Board and Board Treasurer for the local Coalition for Environment, Equity, and Resilience.

Jen holds an MPA from Columbia University with a concentration in Gender and Public Policy and a BA in English from Yale University. She was born and raised in Houston, hails from a three-generation Houston Ship Channel family, and is a proud resident of Houston’s Near Northside neighborhood, where she lives with her husband and a variety of rescue pets, including a 37-year-old box turtle.