This Northeastern grad helped send thousands of supplies to Venezuelan earthquake victims
Northeastern graduate Andrea Dorta Munoz helped deliver thousands of humanitarian aid items to Venezuelans impacted by this summer’s earthquakes.
When Northeastern graduate Andrea Dorta Munoz first heard the news that two earthquakes had struck her home country of Venezuela, her immediate concern was whether her family was safe.
While Munoz’s immediate family had moved out of the country years ago, more than a dozen of her aunts, uncles and cousins still live in Caracas, the country’s capital, and Valencia, which is about a two hour drive from the seat of government.
The two quakes, which occurred less than a minute apart on the evening of June 24 in north-central Venezuela, were measured at magnitude 7.2 and magnitude 7.5, respectively.
They caused significant widespread devastation and death, with more than 6,500 confirmed casualties to date, according to an August report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the humanitarian arm of the United Nation’s office.
The World Bank Group, a global humanitarian organization that supports impoverished countries, estimated the earthquakes caused more than $19.6 billion in damage, the lion’s share of which came from wrecked residential buildings.
Thankfully, Munoz’s family told her they were safe once she was able to get ahold of them a few hours following the quakes. Many other families weren’t so lucky.
“Obviously, this didn’t sit right with me,” Munoz said. She wanted to do something.
So Munoz, a senior technical program manager at Amazon Robotics, coordinated with Amazon’s disaster relief team to help send tens of thousands of emergency supplies to communities in La Guaira, Venezuela, one of the hardest hit areas, and its surrounding regions.
The supplies included everything from hygiene products and first-aid kits to water filters and Wi-Fi systems, according to Marlena Hartz, public relations manager for community impact at Amazon.
Munoz was key in helping connect the disaster relief team with the Venezuelan American Medical Association, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Food for the Poor, a charity organization, Hartz said.
With support from these parties, this July Amazon filled two trucks with more than 42,000 pounds worth of humanitarian aid items which were transported from Massachusetts to Florida and then shipped to Venezuela, Hartz said.
“Andrea also helped load donations and facilitated the trucks’ departure. All of this was done outside her day job, driven by personal connections to the Venezuelan community,” the Amazon spokeswoman said.
In total, the e-commerce giant sent over 698,000 emergency supplies to communities in Venezuela, according to Hartz.
Munoz said helping coordinate the response mirrors her work at Amazon where she helps lead some of the company’s physical AI and machine learning projects.
“I have an analogy I like to use,” Munoz said. “I work as an orchestra conductor.”
Munoz is responsible for leading teams of 80 people and multiple departments — from mechanical engineering to supply chain procurement.
“I oversee how all these teams perform and I’m responsible for taking a product and deploying it into the field,” she said.
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Munoz plays a similar role at Northeastern as the chair of Northeastern Young Global Leaders, an alumni network focused on fostering and expanding the university’s international presence.
Carolyn Jasinski, executive director of leadership relations and advancement initiatives at Northeastern University, said Munoz has helped expand the network’s reach in the time she has been chair.
“Andrea is at heart a mobilizer who, if sparked to act, does so with a direction and confidence that ensures the idea doesn’t just take off but has legacy,” Jasinski said in an email response.
One project Munoz helped work on even before she was chair was the launch of the university’s Experiential Education Opportunity Scholarship, an endowed fund for international undergraduate students pursuing co-ops and Dialogue of Civilizations, intensive faculty-led study abroad classes.
“Andrea doesn’t just ask people to get involved, she models it,” Jasinski added. “She’s carried the Northeastern story to stages around the world, and she treats our Northeastern goal of lifelong learning as something you do, not something you talk about.”
That’s the exact approach she took when reaching out to Amazon’s disaster relief team, Munoz explained. It might have been outside of her role, but she was willing to do what she could to make a difference.
“Sometimes you just work in a company and you don’t think you could have an impact of this scale,” she said. “But this really showed you can.”
