Román Liera is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership. He was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, where he attended Los Angeles Pierce College before transferring to San Diego State University to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a minor in counseling and social change. He then moved to New York City to attend Teachers College, Columbia University, where he received a Master of Arts in Higher and Postsecondary Education before moving back to Los Angeles, where he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California.

He designs his research program to study racial equity and organizational change in higher education. Specifically, he draws on qualitative research methods to understand how organization processes, norms, and practices perpetuate racial inequity. He anchors his scholarship on a theoretical understanding of university and college campuses as racialized organizations with cultures and structures constraining administrators and faculty efforts to advance racial equity. His current research projects focus on understanding how racism operates in doctoral student socialization, the academic job market, faculty hiring, reappointment, tenure and promotion, presidential hiring, and racial equity professional development.

Dr. Vera Senina is a cross-disciplinary teacher and scholar in the humanities, critical theory, medical narratives, and computational linguistics. Vera has experience teaching in diverse modalities, designing innovative student-centered courses, and organizing conference panels and workshops on inclusive curriculum development, assessment strategies, and project-based learning. She also has top-company industry experience in language AI, team development, and project management.