As the Director of Innovation and Impact on the Quality Coaching team, Victoria Dunn manages work addressing scalable solutions for quality education-to-career coaching, especially technology-enabled or publicly available solutions. She also supports overall grant making and management across the team's portfolio including post-secondary education, transition coaching, and state-level supports. Victoria joined Strada in 2024. Previously, she led work in several national college access and success organizations, such as the Posse Foundation, Bottom Line, and KIPP Foundation. 

Dr. Melissa Irvin serves as Senior Associate Vice Provost for Student Success at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In this role, she provides strategic leadership for the Academic Success Center, First-Year Experience & University Pathways unit and Advising & Technology Initiatives, guiding initiatives that promote academic excellence, coordinated care, and proactive interventions. She previously served as Assistant Dean for Academic Support and Outreach at the University of South Florida, where she oversaw Academic Advocacy, High-Impact Practices & Undergraduate Research, and advising technology & analytics. Earlier in her career, she held leadership positions at Tennessee Technological University, advancing enrollment management and student success initiatives that achieved record retention gains. Most recently in the Division of Student Success at UT Knoxville, she led the Division’s adoption of Salesforce Student Success Hub and the development of the University Exploratory Pathways initiative for first-time-in-college students admitted with test scores below historical benchmarks.

Dr. Kayla Devora-Jones is the Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs at Coastal Bend College, a rural Hispanic-Serving Institution in South Texas. A first-generation college student herself, she has spent more than 20 years working in education to create coherent pathways for first-generation, rural, and Latinx students. She holds an doctorate degree in Learning and Organizational Change from Baylor University, fellow of the Latinos for Education Advanced Leadership Fellowship (ALLF), a NASPA Advising Success Network mentor, and the creator of Mi Camino — a bilingual, AI-powered navigator designed to support first-generation Latinx students through the high school-to-college transition. Her work sits at the intersection of user-centered design, access, and innovation in student success.

Amie Tryon has served as Vice President of Academic Affairs at Salish Kootenai College since June 2025, following an interim appointment to the position.  During her 31 years with the College, she has served as an Upward Bound Instructor, Department Chair / Faculty of Liberal Arts, Director of Academic Success, and Director of Institutional Effectiveness.  Her experience as staff, faculty, institutional researcher, and now administrator, provide for a multi-perspective approach in leading student success work.  Through these various roles, Amie has led, and continues to lead, campus student support and success initiatives in conjunction with American Indian College Fund, Achieving the Dream, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, and the Urban Institute in an effort to strengthen sustainable student supports; grow integrated campus collaborations; develop student centric procedures and policies; and build data capacity within campus programs and departments.

David Ford, Ed.D., is Vice President of Quality Coaching at Strada Education Foundation, where he leads efforts to translate the Principles for Quality Education-to-Career Guidance into scalable, statewide practice. He also supports the Quality Coaching team’s efforts to advance human-centered, AI-enabled, technology approaches and solutions for scaling through the use of career navigation platforms. A first-generation college student who began his career as a school counselor, Dr. Ford has spent nearly three decades supporting systems and learners navigating critical transitions from education to meaningful work. Most recently, he served as Bureau Chief at the Iowa Department of Education and Executive Director of the Iowa College Student Aid Commission, overseeing the state’s college access, affordability, and attainment initiatives. A recognized leader in the field, Dr. Ford specializes in aligning K–12, higher education, and workforce systems to ensure that personalized guidance and career navigation become universal drivers of economic mobility.

As Strada’s senior vice president, quality coaching, Craig Robinson leads efforts to ensure all students have access to education-to-employment guidance that helps them reflect on their talents and interests, choose a career goal, map pathways through education, and successfully navigate challenges. Robinson’s work focuses on developing systems that support coaching that is timely and responsive to students’ talents and interests as well as labor market needs.
Before joining Strada in 2024, Robinson served as president and chief executive officer of Matriculate, a national tech-enabled virtual advising program that connects high-achieving, low-income college juniors and seniors to highly trained undergraduate advisors. Robinson previously served as CEO at College Possible, a college access and completion program that matches eligible students with near-peer coaches and a curriculum designed to help them navigate and overcome common barriers to success in education after high school.

Elise Newkirk-Kotfila serves as the assistant vice president for strategy and partnerships at NASPA–Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. Her work focuses on student success research and partnerships, and she leads the Advising Success Network, a dynamic network of national organizations partnering to engage institutions in holistic advising redesign to advance success for all students, including Black, Latinx/a/o, Indigenous, Asian, and Pacific Islander students and poverty-affected students. The network provides technical assistance and resources to guide colleges and universities through advising redesign initiatives and has supported over 267 institutions in 30 states. Prior to her work at NASPA, Elise served as the director of applied learning for the State University of New York (SUNY), where she led SUNY’s 64 campuses through an applied learning initiative which culminated in providing at least one high-quality experiential learning opportunity to 460,000 students. Elise has served on national advisory councils and boards, including on the executive board for the Society for Experiential Education. Elise holds a master’s degree from the University at Albany where she studied Women’s Studies and Public Policy with a research concentration on community-university partnerships and a bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies from The College of Saint Rose.