Serena Simmons Connelly holds a BA from Brown University and a MS from UT Arlington’s School of Social Work. She worked in Dallas nonprofit agencies as a case manager before entering the philanthropic side of human services in 1999, when she joined the Harold Simmons Foundation as a grant reviewer. She currently serves on the advisory councils of several local organizations: Dallas Women’s Foundation, TCU’s Institute of Child Development, TexProtects: Texas Association for the Protection of Children, UNT’s Contemporary Arab & Muslim Cultural Studies Institute, and SMU’s Center on Communities & Education. She serves on the boards of Human Rights Initiative of North Texas and UNICEF.