Lu-Anne Haukaas Lopez named next Executive Director for the ACLU of Alaska

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Alaska announced today the hiring of Lu-Anne Haukaas Lopez as the organization's next Executive Director beginning October 3, 2026.

Haukaas Lopez has served as the ACLU of Alaska’s Deputy Executive Director since 2024. She brings a background of executive leadership, restorative justice, and community organizing to the ACLU of Alaska. Haukaas Lopez, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, is the first tribally enrolled affiliate executive director for the ACLU, a 100+ year old organization spread across all 50 states.

"Lu-Anne brings a critical combination of senior organizational leadership experience and a lived commitment to our state, including a deep history working with Alaskans most impacted by threats to civil rights and liberties," said Rich Curtner, President of the Board for the ACLU of Alaska. "At a time when democracy needs strategic and community-based leadership, the Board is confident that Lu-Anne is the right person to guide the ACLU of Alaska into its next chapter."

Haukaas Lopez has consulted and presented nationally and internationally on ending cycles of intergenerational violence through culturally rooted and trauma informed approaches. As a Senior Advisor at Southcentral Foundation, she led intergenerational trauma programs which were broadly expanded state and nationwide, all guided by the strength and wisdom of Alaska Native Elders.

Born in Colombia, South America, Haukaas Lopez's family was displaced from her birth country by war and moved to the Copper River Valley in Interior Alaska where she grew up living a rural, subsistence, communal lifestyle on Ahtna Athabascan homelands. She is an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate as well as Mestiza, Indigenous to the mountains of Boyacá, Colombia and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Haukaas Lopez is an Alaska Forty Under Forty Awardee, a former pastor, a board member of Alaska Institute for Justice, and an APU Alaska Native Executive Leadership Program participant. She is also an alumnus of both the UAA and APU Master of Fine Arts programs and enjoys writing and collaborating with other artists, particularly at the intersection of art, communal wellbeing, and restorative justice.

"It is an honor to continue to lead the ACLU of Alaska during a critical moment of challenge and transition," said Haukaas Lopez. "With gratitude, I look to the generations of Alaskans who came before who have loved this Land and have guided us with wisdom. I also look to the generations of Alaskans still to come, knowing that our task to build a more just future for them remains."

Haukaas Lopez replaces Mara Kimmel, who has served as the Executive Director since May 2022. Kimmel announced her retirement this spring, and her last day will be October 2, 2026.