Dr. Jennifer Esperanza
Dr. Jennifer Esperanza is the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Coopera, where she specializes on culture change for credit unions and other organizations. She is a trained cultural anthropologist with two decades of research and teaching experience on cooperatives, migrant communities, and economic development.
Dr. Esperanza spent 17 years in academia—teaching at North Carolina State University (NC) , Southwestern University (TX), and at Beloit College (WI), where she was the first Asian American woman promoted to full professor.
She holds a BA in Anthropology and Linguistics from USC, and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from UCLA. Her doctoral research was on economic cooperatives and the global economy, and she has taught courses on political economy, immigration, and consumer culture. Jennifer is frequently invited to give public lectures on topics including immigration, DEI and organizational change for corporate and non-profit audiences. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Humanities Council.
