Alisa Federico Cunningham is Senior Advisor for Policy Research at HEI. She has more than 25 years of experience managing and conducting research projects on a broad array of topics, including student aid and financial literacy, institutional policies directed toward students who enroll but don’t earn a degree, measures of student success for institutions that serve historically marginalized populations, and factors that facilitate student progress toward a credential and beyond. She has extensive experience with federal and other datasets, in addition to survey and qualitative analyses. She has also managed several programmatic student success initiatives and has worked with dozens of higher education institutions to improve their capacity for internal data analysis. Prior to working with HEI, Cunningham was an independent consultant assisting associations, institutions, and other partners with research and evaluation projects. Previously, Cunningham worked at the Institute for Higher Education Policy in Washington, DC as Vice President for Research, where she oversaw IHEP’s research and programmatic work. She was appointed to the Department of Education’s Committee on Measures of Student Success in 2010-2011 and has served as a member of the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC) and numerous NCES Technical Review Panels.