Andrea Venezia

Senior Principal Research Scientist and Director of College and Career Pathways Program, SRI Education

Andrea Venezia joined SRI after being a professor in the Public Policy and Administration Department and the executive director of the Education Insights Center at California State University, Sacramento. She focuses on improving student readiness for, and success in, some form of postsecondary education and training, particularly for historically minoritized students. She enjoys leading work that involves student- and equity-centered collaboration, qualitative research, systems redesign, strategic planning, and network design, and implementation. Venezia is passionate about working in the spaces “in between,” such as between research, policy, and practice and between K–12 and postsecondary. She conceptualized and led the development of the California State University Student Success Network, a systemwide network that brings together students, faculty, staff, and administrators to collaborate, experiment, and share evidence in support of equitable student learning, engagement, progression, and completion. She co-led the conceptualization and development of the California Education Policy Fellowship Program, part of an established national program sponsored by the Institute for Educational Leadership.

Before Sacramento State, Venezia worked at WestEd and oversaw a line of work focused on high school reform, state and federal policy concerning college and career readiness, and community college readiness and success. Prior to joining WestEd, she was a senior policy analyst at the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and directed Stanford University’s Bridge Project, the first large-scale national study that documented state policy barriers inhibiting student progression from high school to college. Venezia also has experience working in a variety of state, federal, and nonprofit organizations, including the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Education Goals Panel, and the American Institutes for Research. She has authored, coauthored, and coedited numerous reports, chapters, articles, and books, including Supporting the College Dream (2015) by Corwin Press, Minding the Gap: Why Integrating High School with College Makes Sense and How to Do It (2007) by Harvard Education Press, and From High School to College (2004) by Jossey-Bass. She earned a BA in English from Pomona College, an MA in administration and policy analysis in higher education from Stanford University, and a PhD in public policy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

Key projects

• Hewlett OER Evaluation
• NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub

Selected publications

• Betraying the College Dream: How Disconnected K-12 and Postsecondary Education Systems Undermine Student Aspirations *
• From High School to College: Improving Opportunities for Success in Postsecondary Education *
• One-Shot Deal?: Students’ perceptions of assessment and course placement in California’s community colleges *
• Shaping Education Policy, Power and Process (Chapter 9) *

*Publications prior to joining SRI International.