Gay currently serves as Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Executive Director of Housing and Residence Life at the University of Virginia. She is responsible for providing overall leadership and programmatic direction for the department.  With over 3 million square feet of residential building space housing over 6,800 on-Grounds residential students (undergraduate and graduate), faculty, staff, and conference guests, Housing and Residence Life (HRL) supports the academic, cultural and social goals of the University.  Over the last six years, she has led a robust 300-million-dollar renovation and construction effort. In addition, she also leads the Conferences@ unit.
                            
In a volunteer capacity, she served on the Executive Board of ACUHO-i from 2013-2015 as Residence Education Director overseeing the initial levels of engagement effort, collaborating on the NHTI program review, and representing ACUHO-i in Durham, England at the inaugural Collegiate Way conference. Then she served as the ACUHO-i Foundation Chair for the next 3 years. As the Past Chair of the Foundation for ACUHO-i, Gay provided leadership with the strategic planning and implementation effort, assisted in the rebranding initiative, and supported the transition of the new Director of Development. In April 2018, she served as a faculty member at the Roelf Visser South Africa Housing Training Institute in Bloemfontein. In November 2019, Gay served as faculty and director-elect for the Global Housing Training Institute in Geelong, Australia. At the start of the 2020 pandemic, Gay served on the “mitigation strategies” subcommittee for the ACUHO-i Future of Housing Work Group. Currently, she is a taskforce member of the ACUHO-i Re-Entry into Fall 2021 Work Group. She is also past president of the Southeastern Association of Housing Officers (SEAHO), past RELI and NHTI faculty, and has been an active member of the organization, regularly presenting at their annual conferences on a variety of topics related to housing and residence life.

A native of Virginia Beach, Virginia, Ms. Perez began her career in housing and residence life in 1992. Prior to returning to the University of Virginia, Ms. Perez served in housing and residence life positions at the University of Miami, Wake Forest University, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Virginia in 1987, as well as her M.Ed. in Administration and Supervision from the Curry School of Education in 1992.