Victoria Ochoa L’21

Victoria is an advocate for majority-minority communities in the southwest United States and beyond. She graduated from St. Edward’s University with a B.A. in Political Science. There, she explored how government impacted and engaged majority-minority communities through internships at the Texas House of Representatives, the U.S. House of Representatives, Annie’s List, the White House, and as a research intern at Stanford.

After graduation, Victoria focused on economic development and equity building in the Southwest. She advocated for higher education in the New Mexico state legislature and was a Schedule C Presidential Appointee in the Obama Administration, where she worked as an assistant in the Secretary of Commerce’s office. Most recently, she worked in the office of U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) as an Assistant to the Chief of Staff. She has been recognized nationally as a Harry S. Truman Scholar and has been published in the Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Texas Tribune, and Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review blog. 

At Penn, Victoria is the Conference Chair for the Latinx Law Student Association and founding member of the Texas Club. During her 1L year, she conducted research for the Hernandez v. Mesa Supreme Court case through a pro bono project with Hilliard and Shadowen and later interned at the ACLU of Texas. Currently, she is a research assistant for Professor Beth Simmons and an intern at the U.S. Department of Justice.