Jason Pickavance currently serves as interim provost for academic affairs at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC). He has previously held various administrative roles at SLCC, including associate provost for academic operations and director of faculty development and educational initiatives where he led an open educational resource initiative. He also served as faculty senate president. Before moving into administration, he was associate professor in the English department. He earned his master’s in English from Western Washington University and his Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Utah.
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As vice chancellor of academic and student affairs, Dr. Sarah Heath provides strategic leadership related to academic affairs, student affairs, and institutional research at CCCS. Heath works closely with college leaders to improve, scale, and evaluate practices that promote academic success and excellence and oversees systemwide diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Heath previously served as CCCS’ associate vice chancellor for career and technical education and the state director for career and technical education and has dedicated her career to advancing opportunities in higher education. She served as the national president of the Association for Career and Technical Education and in 2023 was named an Equity Champion by the Colorado Association for Career & Technical Administrators.
A proud “Triple Dawg,” Heath holds a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree from the University of Georgia.
Sunyeen Pai, Ph.D., has served as digital initiatives librarian at Kapiʻolani Community College since 2008. She manages the college’s open access institutional repository of works by students, employees, and the community. She supports the community colleges and the University of Hawaiʻi System (UH) with open educational resources and Textbook Cost: $0 courses. Previously she worked at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa Library and the East West Center. In 2024 she serves as the president of the Hawaiʻi Library Association. Sunny received her B.A. in sociology (Brandeis University), an M.S. in systems management (University of Southern California), and an M.S. in library and information sciences and a Ph.D. in communications and information sciences (UH).
Wayde Oshiro is the interim learning commons and library coordinator at Leeward Community College. Since 2014, Oshiro has advocated for adopting open educational resources and practices in the classroom to support student learning and success. He co-leads the University of Hawaii Community Colleges OER Initiative and is a member of the Leeward and University of Hawaii System OER Committees. Oshiro is a co-vice president of the Community College Consortium for OER Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee.
Dr. Laura Niesen de Abruña, Ph.D. is the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She has served as provost for four other institutions of higher learning: Dominican University; York College of Pennsylvania; Sacred Heart University; and Roger Williams University. Additionally, she is the Director and Principal Investigator for the Digital Fellows Project for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Niesen de Abruña received a M.A. and the Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a M. S. Ed. in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania.
Billy Meinke, M.Ed., has served as the open educational resources (OER) technologist for the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa since 2016. He leads online course and program development for the UH Mānoa Outreach College, supporting faculty adoption, adaptation, and publishing of OER textbooks alongside traditional curricular materials. Previously, he worked on education, data, and science policy at Creative Commons from 2012-2015. Billy is currently a doctoral student of political science at UH Mānoa, after receiving a B.A. in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2008, and an M.Ed. in educational technology from UH Mānoa in 2012.
Adam Bradford is interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at Idaho State University. Prior to his current role, he served as dean of the Graduate School, overseeing the expansion of the institution’s portfolio of graduate programming, double digit enrollment growth, and significant increases in graduate student funding support. Prior to joining ISU, Bradford served as associate dean of graduate studies in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic University, as well as the founding director of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, department head for the Department of Philosophy, director of the Ph.D. program in comparative studies and associate chair of the Department of English. Bradford researches and teaches 19th-century American literature and culture. He won the 2018 Gargano Award for work on Edgar Allan Poe.
Rick Torres has served as president/CEO of the National Student Clearinghouse since 2008. Under his leadership, the Clearinghouse extended its mission through accessible, innovative technology-based services and data exchange solutions that enable institutions and organizations to focus on maximizing human potential and is a thought and action-oriented leader in helping to evolve the nation to an edu-workforce data-driven ecosystem. Torres serves on the boards of the Brightpoint Community College Foundation, Achieving the Dream and ACT and was a founding member of the Groningen Declaration Network Group, an international consortia dedicated to developing a trusted international data exchange ecosystem. He holds an M.B.A. in international finance from Georgetown University and undergraduate degrees from Manhattan College.