Hans Johnson is a senior fellow at the PPIC Higher Education Center and a member of the PPIC Economic Policy Center. His research focuses on improving college access and completion. He frequently presents his work to policymakers and higher education officials, and he serves as a technical advisor to many organizations seeking to improve college graduation rates, address workforce needs, and engage in long-term capacity planning. His other areas of expertise include international and domestic migration, housing in California, and population projections. Previously, he served as research director at PPIC. Before joining PPIC, he worked as a demographer at the California Research Bureau and at the California Department of Finance. He holds a PhD in demography and a master’s degree in biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Aisha Lowe is executive vice chancellor of the Office of Equitable Student Learning, Experience, and Impact in the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. In this leadership position, she leads academic affairs, student services, and workforce & economic development, overseeing over $3 billion in funding and numerous statewide programs and initiatives. Previously, she served as vice chancellor of educational services and supports at the Chancellor’s Office, where she provided leadership for the Academic Affairs unit. Prior to joining the Chancellor’s Office in 2020, she served as associate professor of education at William Jessup University, where she oversaw the thesis research of future teachers in training. She also served as the dean of the Office of Academic Research, leading the university’s strategic academic research plan and academic grant-making. Additionally, she has been an adjunct professor at the Los Rios Community College District, Sierra College, and California State University, Sacramento. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a master’s in sociology, and a PhD in educational psychology from Stanford University.

Virginia May is a professor of mathematics and statistics at Sacramento City College and vice president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC). Currently, she is chair of the Legislative and Advocacy Committee and the Transfer Alignment Project, second chair of the Career and Technical Education Leadership Committee, and she serves on the Chancellor’s Office Consultation Council, the AB 705 Implementation and Evaluation Collaborative Workgroup, the Chancellor’s Office Ethnic Studies Steering Committee and Taskforce, and the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates. Her other recent roles have included liaison to the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges, RP Group strategic advisor, CSU General Education Advisory Committee, IGETC Standards Committee, Curriculum Committee, California Community Colleges Curriculum Committee, Accreditation Committee, Educational Policies Committee, and Transfer, Articulation, and Student Services Committee. In addition to her work on the ASCCC, she has held numerous leadership positions at college, district, state, and regional levels, including president of the college and district academic senates; chair of the Accreditation and Curriculum Committees, president of the ASCCC Foundation, ACCJC commissioner, and a member of many accreditation visiting teams. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics from California State University, Sacramento.

Cesar Alesi Perez is a research associate at the PPIC Higher Education Center. His work has focused on understanding how educational opportunities and outcomes differ across California, examining the relationship between higher education and economic opportunity, and analyzing the impact of placement and curricular reforms at California community colleges. Before joining PPIC, he was a research assistant at the San Diego Housing Commission, concentrating on evaluating economic security and mobility among rental assistance recipients. He also worked at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and as a hands-on educator at multiple levels of education. He holds an MPP from the School of Global Policy and Strategy at University of California, San Diego and a BA in economics from University of California, Los Angeles.

Myra Snell is a professor of mathematics at Los Medanos College and co-founder of the California Acceleration Project (CAP), a faculty-led professional development network. CAP supports California’s community colleges in implementing reforms that substantially increase equitable student completion of lower-division math and English requirements for university transfer. Along with CAP co-founder Katie Hern, she was named one of the “16 Most Innovative People in Higher Education” by the Washington Monthly. As a nationally recognized expert in remedial math reform, she has worked with Carnegie-Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative in Statistics and consulted with the Statway Project of the Carnegie Foundation for Teaching. In 2015, she was a finalist for the national Faculty Innovation Award from the American Association of Community Colleges. She holds a master’s degree in pure mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.