Lorene Alba, AE-C

Lorene Alba joined the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) in July 2009 as project manager for asthma programs. Her main focus is to manage the Leadership Forum for Healthy Students and Healthy Schools, a collaborative to build the capacity of five states to reduce the burden of asthma in schools at the state level.
Lorene is a certified asthma educator, and comes to AASA from the American Lung Association, where she was manager of mission services for lung health. In this role she implemented programming on asthma management in schools which focused on underserved, rural and urban communities throughout Virginia and North Carolina. Lorene recruited and trained volunteers to facilitate programs through a train-the-trainer model, and has also facilitated asthma education sessions.

Lorene testified in front of the Virginia General Assembly on multiple occasions to advocate for children with asthma, asking legislators to support and pass comprehensive tobacco-free policies in public places. She played a major role in the passing of the legislation banning tobacco in restaurants that went into effect in Virginia in December 2009.

Lorene is the past vice-chair of the Virginia Asthma Coalition, past chair of Allies Against Asthma, and a steering committee member of the Consortium for Infant and Child Health (CINCH). CINCH honored Lorene with two awards in 2008 – the Community Change Agent Award and the Advocate for Change Award, and one in 2009 – Child Health Advocacy Award. She co-founded the Asthma and Allergy School Nurse Expert Program, an educational and mentorship program for school nurses to become Certified Asthma Educators and to create asthma-friendly schools. Lorene created a curriculum to teach medical professionals how to educate the lay person on asthma at the request of a Medicare provider in Virginia and has been presented at numerous in-services.