Noel Ortega is the coordinator of the New Economy Working Group, which is an informal partnership between YES! Magazine, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Living Economies Forum, Institute for Local-Self Reliance, the New Economy Coalition, and the Democracy Collaborative. In 2015, he will help shape the New Economy Maryland fellowship curriculum.
Before coming to IPS in 2009, Noel was a student leader and activist in California and co-founded student organizations such as Global Resistance Network at Mt. San Antonio College and Students to End Hunger and Poverty at the University of California at Irvine. He has been a leader with Students for Peace and Justice, the Worker-Student Alliance, United Students for Fair Trade, the Real Food Challenge, and the Student Trade Justice Campaign, and he was an Oxfam America CHANGE leader.
Noel holds two BAs from the University of California at Irvine, where he conducted research on the impact of regional free trade agreements on rural communities.
