Our Team

As associate director and research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California Higher Education Center, Valerie Lundy-Wagner, PhD, helps oversee a team of researchers to identify programs and policies to help make the state’s higher education system more successful, equitable, and sustainable. Her research focuses on multiple dimensions of higher education, including postsecondary access, college and career pathways, transfer, and within regional or system-level contexts.

A nationally recognized leader on improving student outcomes in higher education, Lundy-Wagner has spent considerable time examining how higher education, K-12, and workforce development connect for large-scale transformation. Over the last 15 years, such themes were prevalent in her work at the Jobs for the Future, California Competes, New York University, and the Community College Research Center (CCRC). Relatedly, Lundy-Wagner has led or contributed to a conversation about the use of data to understand systemic and structural inequality in higher education at the local, state, and national levels all with the goal of improving pathways into and through college for populations from vulnerable and low-income backgrounds.

In her most recent position, Lundy-Wagner oversaw a nearly $200M budget associated with the research and IT teams at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. During that time, she launched a redesign of the systemwide admissions application to better combat fraud and improve UX/UI, initiated a multi-stage project exploring a common enterprise resource planning across the 116 colleges and 73 districts, and led the design and execution of the first-ever systemwide information security initiative. In that role, Lundy-Wagner also nurtured multiple research projects and partnerships to support evidence-based policy on various topics, including but not limited to developmental education reform, student financial aid, and state basic needs resources, evaluating the direct assessment competency-based education pilot, examining categorical program funding allocations, and the role of geography on four-year transfer application and completion outcomes.

Her publications include policy reports and briefs, as well as peer-reviewed academic and practitioner articles in the Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, the Journal of Negro Education, and Change Magazine. Lundy-Wagner currently serves or has served as an advisor for a variety of organizations, including the ASPEN Institute, the Institute for Education Sciences Small Working Group of Experienced Education Practitioners, and the Research and Planning Group for the California Community Colleges.

Dr. Lundy-Wagner earned her bachelor’s degree in civil and environmental engineering at UCLA, her master’s degree in education at Stanford University and her Ph.D. in higher education at the University of Pennsylvania. She also was a postdoctoral scholar in engineering education at Purdue University and served as a Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor at New York University.

Valerie enjoys perusing titles at Marcus Books, the nation’s oldest Black-owned independent bookstore, attending the City Arts and Lectures series in San Francisco, spending time outdoors, listening to podcasts, and going to trivia.

Research is my first love, yet understanding the research-policy-practice gaps is especially exciting. Data assets must be organized and structured in ways that facilitate conversation about what is, as well as what can be. Working with NCHEMS provides me with a forum to engage with national leaders in an independent and non-partisan environment providing insight on how state and/or institutional leaders are considering data, managing governance systems, making decisions, and taking action within complex ecosystems.