Policy & Research Analyst
Excelencia in Education
Arlington, Virginia, United States
Alexia is a Policy & Research Analyst at Excelencia in Education. She informs Excelencia’s policy and practice efforts to accelerating Latino student success while increasing all student success in higher education by conducting research related to Latinos in higher education. Alexia also supports work on institutional transformation through the Seal of Excelencia, and the policy agenda’s current four core priorities: workforce, institutional capacity, affordability, and retention and transfer. In 2025, Alexia participated in the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Data Institute, where she conducted research focused on transfer student pathways.
Alexia’s passion for higher education policy was motivated by her personal background as a first-generation college student. Before joining Excelencia, she worked as a Research Assistant with the Johns Hopkins Poverty & Inequality Research Lab (PIRL) and the Education Policy Initiative (EPI) at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy - University of Michigan where she supported a qualitative research study aimed at reducing inequality in access to higher education. She was also a Summer Scholar at the Postsecondary National Policy Institute with a particular emphasis on accessibility and affordability for underrepresented student populations. She received her AA in Sociology and Social Behavioral Sciences from Santa Rosa Junior College, her BA in Sociology from the University of California, Riverside, and her Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan.
Understanding Transfer Student Success: Insights from IPEDS Data
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
3:45 PM - 4:30 PM East Coast USA Time