Isabel Cardenas-Navia, Ph.D.
Associate Executive Director, Research
Dr. Cardenas-Navia serves as Workcred’s associate executive director of research to advance Workcred’s research agenda and examine workforce credentialing issues and needs.
Previously, Dr. Cardenas-Navia was the vice president of programs, and previously the director of emerging workforce programs, with the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF). Through her career, she led and facilitated projects bringing together Fortune 500 employers and higher education institutions; produced novel research on workforce issues in emerging technical fields; led the development and implementation of a national strategic plan, capacity building tools, and best practices for partnerships between businesses and higher education institutions in data science and analytics; and successfully applied for funding from federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and the Department of Education, as well as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation.
Prior to BHEF, Dr. Cardenas-Navia was the president and founder of Alta Vision Consulting, where she provided short-term, project-based consulting in policy and workforce development in scientific and technical fields; identified, developed, and maintained strategic relationships and partnerships within higher education, industry, government, and foundations; and synthesized and summarized policies and academic research related to higher education and workforce development issues, particularly in digital technology and STEM fields.
Dr. Cardenas-Navia also served as a post-doctoral fellow with the National Human Genome Research Institute, and has conducted multi-faceted research projects at F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Ltd. in Switzerland, the Department of Radiation Oncology at Duke University Medical Center, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, and the Department of Therapeutic Radiology at Yale School of Medicine. She has a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and certificate in Biomolecular and Tissue Engineering from Duke University, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Yale University.
