Manisha Bewtra
(pronouns: she/her)
Manisha Bewtra, AICP serves as Mayor Romero’s Planning, Mobility, and Development Policy Advisor. In this role, she leverages her passion for planning for thriving, healthy, and inclusive communities with her love for policy-making and politics as the Mayor’s liaison on transportation and land use issues. Manisha is an experienced public process facilitator and project manager and works collaboratively with the Mayor’s team and city departments to apply an equity lens to all city initiatives.
In addition to her role at the Mayor’s office, she is an adjunct lecturer in urban planning at University of Arizona’s College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA). She previously worked at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston as the manager of the analytics team and as a senior regional planner, at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership as a statewide technical assistance provider, and in municipal government and nonprofit community development organizations in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and the City of Chandler. Additionally, Manisha has held adjunct city planning instructor roles at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at Arizona State University.
She holds a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a BA in Economics and Art from The University of Iowa. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and member at large for the American Planning Association Arizona Southern Section.
While living in Massachusetts Manisha was elected to the Melrose City Council, becoming the first person of color ever to serve in elected office in Melrose, and prior to that she served as the Vice Chair of the Melrose Human Rights Commission. She grew up in Iowa and identifies as Desi/Indian-American. She lives in Tucson with her husband and her son.