In her over 10 years with OSP, Ayana helped spearhead postsecondary pipeline and mentorship initiatives such as the Temple Future Scholars Program, the annual Dare to Dream Career Week with the PA Attorney General’s Office, the Law & Justice Mentoring Program and the LEAD Black Male Mentoring Program (now School Safety Mentoring Program).  She also co-led a cross-departmental effort to restructure and streamline District policies to increase partner compliance with state and federal law, including the development of the District’s first online legal agreement, to help ensure the sustainability of critical partner work in schools.  

As OSP’s college and career readiness partnerships led over the years, Ayana developed the District’s first College and Career Readiness Community of Practice and has worked with the city’s most prominent post-secondary prep organizations to strengthen and expand their work in schools.  She was recently presented with Let’s Get Ready’s Founder’s Legacy Award and the “College Access Ambassador Award” by the New Covenant Church of Philadelphia. Ayana was also selected to participate in the Pennsylvania Education Policy Fellowship program (2018-19).

Prior to joining the School District of Philadelphia, Ayana worked as a litigation attorney at Morgan, Lewis and Bockius LLP, where she also represented abused and neglected children as a volunteer child advocate.  Before attending law school, she served as Program Coordinator and Retention Specialist for the Harlem Children’s Zone’s (HCZ) College Success Office. At HCZ, Ayana developed retention programs for hundreds of underserved college students to ensure their successful transition to and graduation from higher education institutions.

Ayana was selected to serve as Co-Chair of Penn Law’s Equity & Inclusion Alumni Advisory Board, and is an executive board member of the Penn Law Black Alumni Association.  Ayana also serves as an advisory member of the Philadelphia College Prep Roundtable Advisory Council, the Community College of Philadelphia’s Institute for Community Engagement and Civic Leadership Advisory Council, and Penn State Admissions Advisory Board, and is a member of the Black Nonprofit Chief Executives of Philadelphia.  In 2012, Ayana earned her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a certificate in Cross-Sector Innovation from UPenn’s School of Social Policy & Practice.  Ayana received her B.A. in Sociology from Spelman College in 2006.  She and her husband, Michael Lewis, spend much of their free time hanging out with their spunky, fearless daughters, Zala and Zuri.