Nadia Leal-Carrillo

As part of the Success Center, Leal-Carrillo 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. Leal-Carrillo’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, Leal-Carrillo’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.

Leal-Carrillo earned her Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies and Planning from the University of California, San Diego, where she was a McNair Scholar, and her Master of Arts in Public Administration from the University of Southern California, where she was a Sterling Franklin Graduate Fellow.