Paola Muñoz Rojas, MA's Linkedin Analytics

I am a senior college and career success coach, facilitator, and research scholar. I've worked to leverage data and strategic partnerships across key stakeholders to propel 500+ FG/LI and BIPOC students into their academic/career pathways over 6 years. Hailing as a first-gen South Bronx native, I obtained my MA in Anthropology and Education at Columbia University, Teachers College; my master's thesis explored the healing practices employed by WoC support spaces and social movements in NYC. I also completed my BS in Human Development, with minors in Inequality Studies, Latinx Studies, English, and Education at Cornell University, College of Human Ecology. Currently, I sit on two nonprofit boards for iMentor and Future Leaders in Action, and am the Manager of Undergraduate Career Services at KIPP Forward. For nearly 2 years as a Career Success Manager at Project Basta, I coached 100+ Fellows and achieved ~83% of full time hires securing offers in under 6 months (avg salary $71000), with 56 hired full-time & 44 internship hires at companies like Microsoft, Snap Inc., Dell, and Bloomberg. As a Senior College Advisor at Bottom Line, I co-led the Affirming Student Identities Committee and the Healing Spaces pilot initiative, and exceeded critical performance goals in student satisfaction, engagement, financial aid, and employability milestones. While advising 90+ college students via the Degree, Employability, Affordability, Life curriculum, I achieved 100% advisee satisfaction rate for FY 21; 92% caseload re-enrolled for Fall 2020; 90% caseload financial balances paid in full for Spring 2021; 93% caseload FAFSA completion. Outside of advising, you can find my editorials on HuffPost and Bold Latina. As a McNair Research Scholar with Cornell and Columbia faculty across Human Development and Anthropology, I researched mitigating gender discrimination in the workplace, police “shoot-don’t-shoot” interventions, Ithaca public pedagogy, and the impact of sense of purpose and positive racial/ethnic identification. I also worked as a bilingual RA theorizing the role of public schools and communities as decolonizing entities post Hurricane Maria. Currently, I co-facilitate Who Heals the Healers on topics like grief, leveraging my experiences facilitating at universities through the Cornell Intergroup Dialogue Project and Columbia Women of Color Collective, and identity affinity spaces for non-profit staff. I am also collaborating with my Columbia faculty advisor at Three Thousand Moons planning career advising and financial literacy workshops for street artists.