Colleen Walker

Chief Executive Officer
Auraria Higher Education Center

Colleen Walker is CEO of the Auraria Higher Education Center. In this unique role, Walker oversees the operations and resources of the largest higher education campus in Colorado. The Auraria Campus serves all students, faculty and staff of the Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the University of Colorado Denver in downtown Denver. Previously, she served as vice president for university partnerships at Academic Partnerships, a major global online services provider in higher education. Walker also served as the Eugene McDermott CEO of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas. As CEO of Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas, she successfully integrated the merger of three separate Girl Scout councils into a unified organization to increase mission impact. She also launched a capital campaign for two camps, including a historic South Dallas location that has been transformed into a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Center of Excellence, and is now being adopted at the national level by Girl Scouts of the USA for other Girl Scout councils across the country to replicate.

Working to develop female leaders and advocating for increased opportunities and education in STEM have been Walker’s priorities since college. In 1996, she founded Engineers of Dreams, a nonprofit organization promoting math and science literacy among fourth- through ninth-grade students, especially girls and young women, in Texas, Colorado and Louisiana. She developed “Technology Today,” a multimedia educational program to encourage more than 60,000 participating students to pursue a technical education. In addition, Walker designed and launched a website that served as a student follow-up vehicle and educational link for the 175 schools she visited.

In recognition of her leadership, Walker has been honored by the Dallas Business Journal as one of the “Top 25 Female Business Leaders in Dallas,” and by the Women’s Council of Dallas as “Woman of the Year.” She was also selected by D CEO as one of the “Most Powerful Dallas Business Leaders in Dallas Fort-Worth.”

Walker graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering. In 2000, she received a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard University. While at Harvard, she was awarded the Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowship for outstanding contributions to a nonprofit organization. Colleen joined the NEFE Board of Trustees in 2015.