WOLA: Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas
Executive Assistant and Board Liaison

Kara Hernández

Kara Hernández is the Executive Assistant and Board Liaison at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a leading research and advocacy organization advancing human rights in the Americas. 

Kara has over five years of experience in international security and South-South cooperation in Central America. At the Embassy of Costa Rica in Washington, DC, she supported the Ambassador’s Science Diplomacy and Western Hemisphere cooperation initiatives. Prior to the embassy, she designed and implemented programs focusing on the Arms Trade Treaty, women in incarceration, and citizen security in the Americas at Fundación Arias para la Paz in San José, Costa Rica.

Most recently, she worked as an independent consultant where she helped small businesses and nonprofits implement new hiring practices and operational change management tactics aimed to tackle institutional barriers preventing the recruitment and retention of talented people from diverse backgrounds.

Kara serves as the Chair of the Illicit Trafficking Working Group for Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a double major in History and Latin American Studies and received a Native and Indigenous Studies Certificate. In 2014, she was rewarded a Princeton in Latin America Fellowship.