Named as Seattle Pacific University’s “125 Ones to Watch,” Ava is an award-winning public relations leader with more than a decade of public relations experience. She is passionate about storytelling at the intersection of digital media and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).

Ava is currently the Communications Specialist at Lake Washington School District, a high performing school district serving Redmond, Kirkland and Sammamish. It is the second largest school district in the state of Washington with over 4,500 employees and 30,605+ students in 56 schools. In 2022, Ava and her team were honored with a state award from the Washington School Public Relations Association for their social media campaign, which was recognized for its creativity and excellence in DEI.

Earlier in her career, she started in local government, which includes City of Renton, Mayor’s Office (population: 105,179) and City of Snoqualmie (population: 13,810). At these agencies, Ava provided public affairs and marketing support to city departments to inform and do business with community members.

She is trained as a Public Information Officer, where she earned three certifications through the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(United States Department of Homeland Security). During emergencies and disasters, she is trained as a spokesperson to provide communication between the media, the public and government organizations. With public safety officials, she has assisted and/or provided support at crime scenes, barricade incidents, car accidents, major floods and a plane crash.

During her time at the City of Renton, Ava also provided communications support to the Inclusion Program in the Executive Department. Ava and her team have been honored with several prestigious awards locally and nationally for their multicultural communication efforts in the Renton Multicultural Festival. In 2018, the PRSA Puget Sound honored them for their DEI work at the Totem Awards Celebration. PRSA honors the best public relations programs, tactics and practitioners in the region.

Ava is the Owner and Photographer of Ava Van Photography, a business she built from the ground up when she was in college. Combined with her government job, Ava has photographed thousands of families, high school seniors and public figures: White House, governor, politicians, Seattle Seahawks, Seattle SuperSonics, TV anchors/reporters/hosts, Miss Washington USA, authors and more.

Back in college, she interned for KING5 TV (NBC affiliate), where she assisted in producing Evening Magazine, the top-rated, locally produced news magazine show in the country. She obtained her internship during sophomore year in college. The internship is intended for juniors and seniors. Originally, her dream was to become a TV reporter for a major TV network, but she landed a government job she could not pass up on.

As a Journalist and Photographer, Ava’s stories and photographs have been featured on numerous TV stations, publications and platforms: KING5 TV (NBC affiliate), KOMO4 TV (ABC affiliate), FOX13 (FOX affiliate), The Seattle Times, GeekWire, Microsoft, Renton Reporter, Snoqualmie Valley Record, International Examiner, NW Asian Weekly and many more.

Outside of work, Ava serves as a Community Representative on the Independent Force Investigations Team - King County for the City of Bellevue Police Department. Ava was appointed as the youngest representative on the team. This volunteer position plays a significant role that ensures accountability, transparency and trust between the community and the police department. To further her knowledge, she earned a certification through the Criminal Justice Information Services (Federal Bureau of Investigation). She also graduated from two community police academies, which includes the Bellevue Police Department and Redmond Police Department.