Catherine Nagel is the executive director of City Parks Alliance (CPA), the only nationwide independent organization dedicated solely to urban parks. Under her leadership, CPA has established the Greater & Greener biannual conference, created the bipartisan Mayors for Parks coalition, and developed a training program for equitable public-private park partnerships. Nagel is a co-investigator with the RAND Corporation in the first national study to determine the correlation between urban parks management and policies and physical activity.
Prior to CPA, Nagel served as executive director of National Association for Olmsted Parks and executive director of the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia. She has consulted on economic development with Greater Philadelphia First, a business leadership organization promoting international investment, and was a producer with Nippon Television Network, Japan’s oldest broadcast network, in its New York news bureau and affiliated firms in Tokyo.
Nagel holds a master's degree in landscape architecture from the University of Pennsylvania School of Design and a bachelor’s degree in Japanese studies from Bucknell University. She also completed the Stanford University Graduate School of Business's Executive Program for Non-Profit Leaders.
