Aysha Pamukcu, JD

Aysha Pamukcu, JD

Policy Fund Director
San Francisco Foundation

Aysha Pamukcu, JD, advances racial justice through policy and systems change. She leads the Policy Fund at the San Francisco Foundation, pursuing regional solutions to Bay Area’s interconnected challenges of housing, transportation, and economic opportunity. She is also the founder of Movement Praxis, an equity-centered policy and philanthropic consulting practice whose accomplishments include co-creating the “civil rights of health” framework.

Aysha has worked with communities across the country on policy solutions to racial, economic, and health injustice. She recently led ChangeLab Solutions’ health equity practice, using policy to improve the health of the most marginalized people and places. She was recognized as one of the de Beaumont Foundation’s “40 under 40 in Public Health” for her innovative work.

Prior to that, Aysha worked as a civil rights attorney for the Greenlining Institute and clerked for judges in the Supreme Court Chamber of the Cambodian war crimes tribunal. Other philanthropic work includes leading three donor collaboratives (in democratic integrity, economic justice, and climate justice) and serving on the founding advisory boards of the Hive Fund for Climate & Gender Justice and the Collective Future Fund. She currently serves on the boards of the Asian-Pacific Environmental Network and Baby-Friendly USA.

Aysha’s commitment to justice work is anchored by her personal story. She is the proud child of immigrants and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Aysha saw firsthand that where we live and who we are affects our access to opportunity, and now works toward a future where everyone can thrive.