Nadia Leal-Carrillo

As part of the Success Center, Nadia leads policy development, research, and strategic planning efforts to advance large-scale, systemwide reforms and innovative solutions to address structural, programmatic, and policy barriers to student success. Nadia’s work is grounded in her own experience as a first-generation immigrant college graduate. Her policy development and research in the last two decades has focused on issues of access and equity for underserved and marginalized populations.

FoundationCCC Highlights

• Provides the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office with rigorous, actionable, and timely policy research and data analysis  to inform and influence state-level policy changes related to student success.
• Conducts regulatory and statutory background analyses for the Chancellor’s Office to support Title 5 regulatory action to improve equitable student outcomes. 
• Develops a framework for policy change and produces policy briefs aimed at improving student success and advancing goals for the system.

Prior to joining FoundationCCC, Nadia’s previous roles include key leadership positions with the University of California, the Office of the President, and the California State Senate.  She also served as a California State Senate Fellow and a California Education Policy Fellow.

Nadia earned her B.A. in urban studies and planning from the University of California, San Diego, where she was a McNair Scholar, and her M.A. of public administration from the University of Southern California, where she was a Sterling Franklin Graduate Fellow.