Finishing up her senior year at the University of California San Diego, Emelyn dela Pena just wanted to be a RA forever.

The newly announced dean for the Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) didn’t know it then, but a conversation with her supervisor would lead her to become a leader for diversity at top universities and colleges for years to come.

“I was a senior. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life—I thought I wanted to go to law school, but then I changed my mind, and then I wanted to go to grad school. And if I did, what would I do, and then I just happened to make that comment, and [my supervisor] said, ‘Well what do you think I do for a living?’” dela Pena recalled.

Her love for advocating for diversity and inclusion started early—as an undergraduate student, she was a member of the Filipino-American student organization, Asian and Pacific-Islander Student Alliance and the student affirmative action committee. In her graduate school application, she wrote in her statement of purpose that she wanted to direct a multicultural center of some kind; her master’s thesis revolved around resident adviser attitudes on LGBT issues, and her doctoral dissertation focused on a case study on campus-based women’s centers.

When she arrived at Harvard College in 2011, she began her career on the student affairs side as an assistant dean.

“It was through my everyday practice of incorporating diversity and inclusion into my work that I think we really started to see the place and the need for someone to be dedicated to this kind of work,” dela Pena said, and in 2014, she was named assistant dean of student life for equity, diversity and inclusion.

But as the position at Washington University became available, dela Pena started to consider her career trajectory.

“I was at a point in my career where I was starting to think about, ‘Did I want to be a chief diversity officer somewhere? Or do I want to be vice president of student affairs somewhere?’ Because my career trajectory really could have gone in either direction,” dela Pena said. “I had experience on both sides of the house and [was] really grappling with what do I want to do, where do I want to go with my next step.”

The Washington University position offered the best of both worlds. Officially, dela Pena is an assistant vice chancellor for student affairs, in addition to heading the Center for Diversity and Inclusion.

“The Center for Diversity and Inclusion is certainly an important place, both a physical space and a psychological mental space on campus, but also [the way] they crafted the position felt like they were really trying to embed the values of diversity and inclusion and social justice practice into the fabric of Washington University,” dela Pena said.

With her role beginning on Oct. 31, dela Pena is starting to think about what is to come.

“I think one of my goals is to really inform the work that we’re doing within the CDI with what’s happening locally, regionally and nationally. That the work we’re doing here on campus should be relevant,” she said.

She is especially excited that her office is located in Olin Library, in a space where students gather, as opposed to in an administrative office space like where she sat at Harvard.

“To be in the middle of it all with the traffic and the noise and the energy that’s happening in a space that’s populated by students I think is really exciting,” dela Pena said.

Even though she’s coming to Washington University with over two decades of experience, dela Pena still is expecting some first day jitters.

“It’s scary; it’s super scary. I hope I get it right, but at the same time it’s like, ‘let’s do this!’”