Sarita E. Brown

President, Excelencia in Education

Sarita E. Brown is President of Excelencia in Education, a not-for-profit organization working to accelerate Latino success in higher education by linking research, policy, and practice to serve Latino students. She has spent more than two decades at prominent national educational institutions and at the highest levels of government working to implement effective strategies to raise academic achievement and opportunity for low-income and minority students. She started her career at the University of Texas at Austin by building a national model promoting minority success in graduate education. Coming to the nation's capital in 1993 to work for educational associations, Ms. Brown was appointed as Executive Director for the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans under President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. Maintaining her commitment to improving the quality of education, Ms. Brown applied her talents and experience to the not-for-profit sector and in 2004, co-founded Excelencia in Education.

An outstanding public speaker, Ms. Brown travels throughout the country to advocate for Latino college-going talent. Her writing on topics includes her chapter, Making the Next Generation Our Greatest Resource in Latinos in the Nation's Future edited by Henry Cisneros and editorials in the Miami Herald, the Austin American Statesman and Inside Higher Education.

Ms. Brown serves on the Board of Directors for ACT Inc., the National College Access Network (NCAN) and Old Dominion University, as well as on advisory committees for the National Association for Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, and the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education. She holds a bachelor's of arts in ethnic studies and a bachelor's of science and master's of arts in communication from The University of Texas at Austin. In 2009, she received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from North Carolina State University.

Email: sbrown@edexcelencia.org