Alexandra (Ali) Hawkins graduated Magna Cum Laude from Wellesley College with a BA in History. She holds an MA in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Columbia University, and an MBA from Xavier University.

Before joining JustHope, Ali was the Director of Special Initiatives at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Between 2017 and 2021, she traveled extensively and lived abroad in a number of countries. In 2018 and 2019, Ali participated in the program Remote Year during which she worked remotely as a National Institutional Giving Consultant for the Breakthrough Collaborative and as a Grant Writer for Facing History and Ourselves. During the 2017-2018 academic year, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at Rothberg International School at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While in Israel/Palestine, she also served as a Development and Communications Consultant at Neve Shalom - Wahat al-Salam, the region’s only intentionally integrated community.

From 2014 to 2017, Ali was the Executive Director of Breakthrough Cincinnati, a local affiliate of the national Breakthrough Collaborative. From 2008 to 2012, Ali volunteered and worked with Facing History and Ourselves in New York City. While in graduate school in New York, she supervised and mentored pre-service student teachers in New York City Public Schools and co-founded an after-school program called Youth Historians in Harlem.