 Robin Ellis, Executive Director, Student Success
Robin Ellis is the Executive Director of Student Success and leads the Center for Student Success team at AASCU. In her role, Robin oversees the strategic direction of student success strategies throughout the association. Prior to this role, she served as Director of AASCU's Frontier Set (FS) initiative focused on the practice of institutional transformation and as the Director for AASCU’s Re-Imagining the First Year of College (RFY) initiative focused on institutional innovations that dramatically improve the first year experience. Robin comes to AASCU from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi where she worked as a development officer, senior grant administrator and lead project manager for more than 18 years. Robin earned her Ed.D. Educational Leadership from Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, her M.A. in Public Administration from Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, and her B.A. in International Relations from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. |
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 Jacquelyn R. Jones, Senior Director, AASCU’s Frontier Set & Student Success Strategy
Jacquelyn R. Jones is the Senior Director of AASCU’s Frontier Set (FS) & Student Success Strategy where she provides strategic vision and leadership for developing and contributing to the student success strategy work in the Center for Student Success and the Frontier Set. Understanding and contributing knowledge on institutional transformation and accelerating progress of near-term indicators for AASCU’s Frontier Set campuses is critical to her role. Jacquelyn also serves as the connection bridge for learning across the segment and up through the Frontier Set network through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, providing support to AASCU and supporting student success nationally. Prior to working at AASCU, Jacquelyn worked at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she served as the Director of Retention Initiatives working to increase retention and completion rates, as well as improving the student success platform on campus. She has worked in both academic and student affairs and has extensive experience establishing rapport and cultivating relationships with campus stakeholders. Jacquelyn, originally from the Cleveland, Ohio area is a first generation college student and the first in her family to receive a Ph.D. Jacquelyn earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from The University of Toledo, her M.S. in Higher Education Administration from The University of Akron, and her B.S. in Sport and Exercise Science with a concentration in Sports Management from The University of Akron.
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 Melissa A. Welker, Director, AASCU’s Frontier Set
Melissa A. Welker is the Director of AASCU’s Frontier Set (FS), where she provides leadership and manages 6 institutional portfolios focused on the development and discovery of new knowledge, models, practices and tools that have the potential to dramatically improve specific student learning and life outcomes. She provides critical capacity support by providing the programmatic, logistical, operational, and strategic assistance needed to meet our institutions where they are at with a focus on institutional transformation and student success. Prior to working at AASCU, Melissa served as the Executive Director of Student Success Programs and Initiatives at Northern Arizona University since 2015, where she led various programs and facilitated the development of university wide initiatives intended to bolster student success across the university. Prior to her last position, Melissa has had the opportunity to develop and implement peer mentoring programs, build bridges between academic and student affairs, harness data and insights to develop initiatives, work in the academic advising realm and participate in institutional transformation. Melissa is passionate about the connection between social justice and education which grounds her work in advocating for students to have the best opportunities for learning and growth, both within higher education and in the community she lives. Melissa earned her M.S. in Education with an emphasis in Counseling and Student Affairs from Northern Arizona University, and her B.S. in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Marketing from the University of Northern Colorado. |
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 Bao Le, Director, Data Analytics & Impact, Center for Student Success
Prior to joining AASCU, she served as an Associate Education Research Analyst for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) at the U.S. Department of Education. She worked on the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which collects data from every college, university, and vocational and technical school that participates in Title IV financial aid programs. Bao received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Texas - Austin and an M.S. in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
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 Cameron Smither, Director, Assessment & Network Engagement, Center for Student Success
Cameron Smither joins the AASCU Student Success team as the new Director of Assessment & Network Engagement following his role of researcher at the American Institutes for Research, serving in the Secondary Education, College, Career Readiness, and Workforce Development practice areas. His areas of focus include and designing and assessing targeted student success initiatives; understanding and communicating the “return on investment” from postsecondary credentials; postsecondary models of competency-based education; and designing improved measures of institutional performance, cost to students, and student progression to drive continuous improvement.
Prior to joining AIR, Cameron was a Presidential Fellow at the George Washington University, providing program support and analysis for their inaugural Office of Diversity & Inclusion. He holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University with a concentration in program evaluation.
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 Nyala Watkins, Program Manager, Student Success Initiatives
Nyala Watkins is a Program Manager of Student Success Initiatives for AASCU’s Academic Leadership and Change Division. She works with the
Re-Imagining the First Year of College (RFY) and
Frontier Set (FS) initiatives. Prior to this role, Nyala was the Senior Program Advisor for AASCU’s Grants Resource Center. She earned her B.A. in Sociology and Speech Communication from Syracuse University.
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 Prateek Basavaraj, Research Analyst, Student Success Initiatives
Prateek Basavaraj joins the AASCU Student Success team as the Research Analyst. Prior to joining AASCU, he served as Graduate Research Assistant at the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Central Florida (UCF), Orlando, Florida. He worked on the student success project as part of the Targeted Educational Attainment grant sponsored by the Florida legislature to improve the graduation rates of undergraduate computing programs at UCF. Prior to his last position, Prateek has worked as a research technician at the UCF Office of Research and Commercialization.
His research expertise lies in academic analytics, institutional research, and program quality improvement. Prateek has worked on several projects studying the STEM program curriculum, quality enhancement of computing programs to improve student success. Prateek has published and presented at national and international level conferences. He served as a reviewer for academic journals and conferences. Prateek earned his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from UCF with an emphasis in the area of higher education data analytics, his M.S. in Computer Science from UCF, and his B.S. in Computer Science from Kuvempu University, India.
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