Tonya Rice is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Advocacy and Engagement in the Office of Government and Community Relations at Washington University in St. Louis. She leads efforts to build and mobilize the university’s advocacy community, connecting students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends with opportunities to advance WashU’s legislative and strategic priorities. Through the WashU Advocates and Bears Caucus programs, she combines grassroots advocacy, grasstops relationship building, data and technology to strengthen support for the university’s mission and demonstrate its impact across Missouri and beyond.
Before joining WashU, Ms. Rice led strategic engagements with state and local governments and nonprofit organizations at Amazon Web Services (AWS), focusing on cybersecurity and applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning for civic engagement and election administration. Previously, as Director of Elections for the Cook County Clerk in Chicago, she managed voter outreach and education, data and technology modernization initiatives, cybersecurity assessments, and analysis of state and federal laws affecting elections.
A fifth-generation St. Louisan, Ms. Rice serves on the board of directors of Metropolitan Village, an affordable housing community in Midtown St. Louis. She also serves on the board of Democracy Works, a nonpartisan civic technology nonprofit that partners with AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, to expand access to reliable voting information.
She earned a Juris Doctor from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University.