Katya Armistead is the Assistant Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Student Life at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) campus, with oversight of organizational departments, programs, policies, and initiatives that promote growth and achievement.

She is passionate about making the world a more just and equitable place, and she is known for being a champion of inclusion for all people. Putting to work her doctorate degree in Educational Leadership from UCSB’s Givertz Graduate School of Education (GGSE), along with her over 30 years of experience in higher education, she has coached professionals and college students in the areas of leadership, diversity, and inclusion, organizational development, crisis management, and advising.

Katya is a certified facilitator of The Leadership Challenge, a leadership framework developed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner and is known worldwide as the most practiced model of leadership. She uses this in training student leaders in the upper-division leadership development course she teaches in GGSE, within workshops and coaching for the Santa Barbara county nonprofit organization Leading From Within’s Emerging Leaders Program, and facilitating The Leadership Challenge Workshop and coaching sessions for the County of Santa Barbara’s inaugural Leadership Certificate Program participants.

Katya is known for her positive energy, genuineness, openness to hearing everyone’s personal story, and her skill for bringing together opposing groups to negotiate respect and understanding. Arranger, Adaptability, Achiever, Communication, and Input are her top 5 Clifton Strengths. She welcomes opportunities that challenge her and others to grow and that foster personal and professional expansion.