Affiliates

Katy Abel is Associate Commissioner for External Affairs and Special Projects at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. In addition to managing media relations and strategic communications for the Department, she works closely with campus and state agency partners to coordinate housing pilots for homeless and housing insecure students. She is currently leading the work of a statewide advisory committee to develop a strategic plan for basic needs security response across the public higher education system. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a journalist by training, Katy worked as a reporter, producer and talk show host in Boston radio and television for two decades. 

Drew M. Anderson is an Associate Economist at the RAND Corporation where the main focus of his research is financial decision-making by college students. He collaborates with the Hope Center on the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study and a federally-funded study of loan counseling.

Katharine M. Broton an Assistant Professor of higher education and sociology (courtesy) at the University of Iowa whose research interests include sociology of education, social stratification and education policy. She is co-leading several Hope Center studies testing food and housing supports for community college students and collaborating on the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study.

Bridget Burns is the Executive Director of University Innovation Alliance where she advises university presidents, system chancellors, and state and federal policy leaders on strategies to expand access to higher education, address costs, and promote completion for students of all backgrounds.

Shar-Day Campbell is an award-winning communicator and certified social media expert who currently serves as the Enrollment Communications and Social Media Manager at Houston Community College (HCC). She is a key partner in the Hope Center’s evaluation of food scholarships at HCC.

Ruben Canedo is the Research and Mobilization Coordinator at the University of California, Berkeley Centers for Educational Equity & Excellence. Ruben is a key Hope Center partner in the #RealCollege movement and its annual conference.

Sarah A. Cordes is an Assistant Professor at the Temple University College of Education whose research focuses on the ways in which the urban context, including neighborhoods, housing, transportation, and school choice, affects student outcomes. She is co-PI on a Hope Center study of Section 8 housing vouchers for community college students.

Kim is the Principal Consultant for Critchlow & Associates, past board member for Visually Impaired Preschoolers
and member of a local branch of NAACP. She has held several leadership positions in industry and in higher education and actively teaches doctoral students in pursuit of their Doctor of Business Administration degree. She holds a post-doctor Master of Science in Psychology, a Doctor of Management in Organizational Leadership, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from University of Phoenix, and a Master of Business Administration/Management from Golden Gate University.

Rashida Crutchfield is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at California State University, Long Beach, where she is committed to amplifying the voices of marginalized communities and leads research on basic needs security in the California State University system. She contributes to Hope Center guidance on the measurement of basic needs security, and is co-developing a new study of a rapid housing assistance program.

Barbara Duffield has worked at the intersection of education and homelessness for more than twenty-five years, and now serves as Executive Director of SchoolHouse Connection, a national organization providing strategic advocacy and technical assistance to overcome homelessness through education. She provides strategic policy advice to the Hope Center and contributes to the annual #RealCollege conference.

Jeremy Everett is the founder and executive director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty.  The Collaborative integrates research and practice through projects such as: the Texas Hunger Initiative; the Research Fellows Program; the Global Hunger and Migration Project; the Theology, Ecology, and Food Justice Program; and the Hunger Data Lab.

Nicholas Freudenberg is Distinguished Professor of Public Health at the CUNY School of Public Health where he also directs the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute and Healthy CUNY, a university-wide initiative to promote the health of CUNY’s 274,000 students to support their academic and life success. For more than 30 years, Freudenberg has planned, implemented, and evaluated policies and programs to improve the health and reduce health inequities in urban populations.  Hi recent work focuses on three areas: the role of urban food policy in creating healthier, more equitable and sustainable cities; strategies to assist low-income urban college students to overcome the health and social problems that interfere with academic success, and the impact of corporate business and political practices on the health of populations and health inequities   He has published more than 150 scientific articles and report and authored or co-authored five books.   His work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the W.T. Grant Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the US Centers for Disease Control, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and others.

Dr. Frank Harris III is a professor of postsecondary education and co-director of the Community College Equity Assessment Lab (CCEAL) at San Diego State University. Harris is also a senior strategist in the Division of Campus Diversity and Student Affairs. In this role, he advises the Division on efforts to institutionalize equity and designs innovative professional learning experiences to build equity mindedness among faculty and staff.

Dr. Harris is best known for his expertise in racial [in]equity in postsecondary education and has made important contributions to knowledge about college student development and the social construction of gender and race in college contexts. His work prioritizes populations that have been historically underrepresented and underserved in education. Harris’s scholarship has been published in leading journals for higher education and student affairs research and practice, and his commentary has been sought by high-profile media outlets, including CNN, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Colleges and universities across the country regularly consult Harris for his expertise on student equity, student success, and institutional transformation, and he has worked with more than 100 postsecondary institutions, community organizations, and nonprofits on equityrelated efforts. He has also delivered more than 1,000 academic and professional presentations throughout his career. During the Obama Administration, Harris was invited to The White House to share his knowledge and expertise on the status of boys and men of color in education.

Before joining the faculty at San Diego State, Harris worked as a student affairs educator and college administrator in student crisis support and advocacy, new student orientation programs, multicultural student affairs, academic advising, and enrollment services. He also served as an adjunct professor of speech communication at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. Harris earned a bachelor’s degree in communication studies at Loyola Marymount University, a master’s degree in speech communication at California State University, Northridge, and a doctorate in higher education from the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California.

Anthony Abraham Jack is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and Assistant Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He holds the Shutzer Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. His first book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Poor Students, explores the experiences of lower-income undergraduates at elite colleges. Tony delivered a well-received TEDxCambridge talk, “On Diversity: Access Ain’t Inclusion“. He will be sharing his work on food insecurity and his new book at the 2019 #RealCollege conference.

Robert Kelchen is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Seton Hall University whose research interests focus on higher education finance and accountability policies, including areas such as student financial aid, college rankings, and program evaluation. He collaborates with the Hope Center on multiple studies of financial aid and living costs and contributes to the #RealCollege conference.

Tasha Seneca Keyes is an Assistant Professor at the College of Social Work University of Utah.  Before receiving her PhD from the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, Tasha was a school social worker in Utah.  Her practice experience influences her teaching and research interests that centers on how K-12 schools can effectively utilize school social workers to improve educational outcomes, such as graduating from high school college- or work-ready. Her current research is community-based and focuses on examining school-wide interventions, such as restorative justice and trauma-informed approaches led by school social workers in high schools, that promote relationships, connection, and community and improve educational outcomes for underrepresented students, particularly Native American students.   

Stephan was a dedicated student leader and advocate during his time at the Ramapo College of New Jersey. Stephan currently serves as a Senior Staff Associate to NJ Assembly Speaker Craig J. Coughlin. He advises the Hope Center on policy issues. 

Matthew Morton, DPhil, is a Research Fellow at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago with expertise in youth empowerment, homelessness, and evaluation of complex interventions. Matt leads Chapin Hall’s cluster of work on youth homelessness, including Voices of Youth Count, the most comprehensive national research initiative to-date on youth homelessness in the U.S.  Matt is collaborating with the Hope Center’s Sara Goldrick-Rab on a new book about homelessness and education, and contributes to the #RealCollege conference.

Jenny Nagaoka is the Deputy Director of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, where she has conducted research for over 20 years. Her research interests focus on policy and practice in urban education reform, particularly using data to connect research and practice and examining the school environments and practices that promote college readiness and success. She is a senior advisor to the To&Through Project, a project that provides educators, policymakers, and families with research, data, and training on the milestones that matter most for college access and success. She and is the lead author of Foundations for Young Adult Success: A Developmental Framework(2015) which draws on research and practice evidence to build a framework of the foundational factors for young adult success.

Lindsay Page is the Annenberg Associate Professor of Education Policy at Brown University whose research focuses on quantitative methods and their application to questions regarding the effectiveness of educational policies and programs across the pre-school to postsecondary spectrum. She is a co-investigator on a Hope Center intervention study of nudging and FAFSA renewals.

Lara Perez-Felkner is an associate professor of Higher Education and Sociology and Higher Education graduate program coordinator at Florida State University. Her research investigates gender, racial-ethnic, institutional, and socioeconomic disparities in post-secondary educational attainment and entry to STEM fields. She is co-leading a Hope Center study of an affordable housing support for college students.

Derek V. Price, Ph.D. is Principal and Founder of DVP-PRAXIS LTD. Founded in 2005, the action-oriented consulting firm provides formative and summative evaluation services, strategic facilitation and advising, and technical assistance and training to support efforts to inform implementation and measure impact across postsecondary education and training systems. The company’s philosophy is informed by culturally responsive and equity-focused principles, practiced through listening with a keen ear to clients and partners, seeking out diverse voices to be heard and acknowledged, and designing project activities and data collection efforts using participatory and inclusive approaches. He and his team collaborate with Hope Center on benefits access projects (e.g., UWKC Benefits Hub), basic needs research (e.g., public transportation subsidies for students), emergency aid during the pandemic, and the real price of college.

Michael Rosen is the former Union President of the American Federation of Teachers Local 212  and retired economics instructor at Milwaukee Area Technical College, where he also launched their FAST Fund emergency aid program. He is a key advisor to the Hope Center, particularly on emergency aid.

Stephanie Sena is the founder and executive director of the Student-Run Emergency Housing Unit of Philadelphia (SREHUP), a non-profit homeless shelter in Philadelphia, operating since 2011. Under Sena’s leadership, SREHUP launched The Breaking Bread Village. The initiative increases the inventory of affordable housing through client/volunteer rehabbing of vacant houses, and the building of tiny home villages. In the fall of 2021, Sena joined PA State Senator Nikil Saval’s Housing Policy Advisory Team and works with Saval and other housing advocates and legislators in the fight for housing and economic justice throughout the region and country.  

Stephanie Sena is also the Anti-Poverty Fellow at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, where she teaches courses on poverty and policy, and leads the Initiative to End Poverty and Inequality.  

Christopher Shults is the Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Planning, MSCHE Liaison, and Chief Strategist at the Borough of Manhattan Community College – named a 2021 Top 10 Aspen Community College Excellence Finalist. He regularly publishes, presents, and consults on issues of institutional effectiveness, planning, and leadership; has co-created and co-led development programs for senior administrators and faculty; and is an advisory board member for the Ed.D program in Community College Leadership at New Jersey City University. An advocate for service, he has served as a Big Brother, the lead chef for a single mom’s ministry, and food banks. His most recent publication, Reinventing the Community College Business Model: Designing Colleges for Organizational Success, challenges community college to intentionally redesign for student success.

Amanda Tachine is Navajo from Ganado, Arizona and a Research and Evaluation Associate at the American Indian College Fund. She is a key advisor to the Hope Center’s nascent efforts at supporting Native Americans students and tribal colleges.

Douglas Webber is a Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors whose research focuses on the economics of higher education.

Brittany M. Williams, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. As a first-generation college graduate from a low-income community, and a proud product of Atlanta Public Schools, Williams is committed to exploring the experiences of college students and graduates most often relegated to margins of higher education. Accordingly, her research explores social class, workplace and career development issues, and HIV/AIDS in college contexts. Black women and girls serve as her primary population for scholarly inquiry on these matters. 

Travis York is the Director of Academic & Student Affairs at the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU) whose research centers on issues of college student access, success, and educational equity. He is a co-investigator on a Hope Center study of completion grants.