Dr. Grant is the Interim Senior Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer at SUNY, System Administration. She has a combined of over 18+ years of experience working in higher education and non-profit organizations. She has served in DEI leadership roles for over a decade and her work has been regionally and nationally recognized. Prior to joining SUNY, Dr. Grant served as the Director of Staff Learning at Year Up, a national non-profit organization with a mission to close the opportunity divide for young adults in the U.S., where she oversaw org-wide onboarding program for new employees and managers.
Dr. Grant is the recipient of the 2017 Mission Integration Award in Diversity and Inclusion from the Association for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities (ASACCU), she also received an Academic Excellence Award in 2022 for her doctoral work at Northeastern University as well as the 2022 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Business Award issued by the Albany Business Review. Dr. Grant has presented her work at both regional and national conferences including the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE), Association for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges & Universities (ASACCU) and the College Student Personnel Association of New York State (CSPA-NY). Additionally, Dr. Grant is a trained facilitator for the Intergroup Relations (IGR) program and the co-founding faculty for the IGR course at Siena College, NY. She has committed majority of her professional career in higher education and is committed to create sustainable change by being a scholar-practitioner. Her doctoral research focused on creating a sense of belonging for BIPOC students at predominantly white institutions.
Dr. Grant received a Doctorate in Higher Education Administration from Northeastern University, a master's degree in Education from The College of Saint Rose, and a Bachelor's degree in Communications and Sociology from SUNY Buffalo '05.
Mark Martinez is the Director of Operations for the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. From Brooklyn NY, Mark is a Siena College and College of Saint Rose graduate who has spent his career in higher education fostering inclusive communities and building programs for students, faculty and staff. Mark's experiences have been defined both by his time working in colleges in the Capital Region as well as his educational and professional experiences abroad. From 2017-2020, he served as a Residence Director at Siena College, managing upper class residential areas while also being a key campus collaborator for International Programs serving as representative for both the study abroad program and international student recruitment.
Mark has also worked at SUNY Schenectady as a Student Success Coach for the 2020-2021 academic year, managing student concerns and partnering with faculty to improve student academic outcomes. Most recently, Mark served as the Assistant Director and then Associate Director of Minerva Programs at Union College, Schenectady, NY, where he spent three and a half years developing new policies & procedures to take the program to new levels. Mark developed operating manuals for faculty, programmatic framework for student leaders and contributed to the vibrancy of campus through large scale programs from First Year Orientation and Convocation to off campus experiences to encourage student participation in the greater capital region while also taking up the role as Men's Club Soccer Coach. Additionally, Mark has helped spearhead the restructure of the Office of Residential Education & Housing Operations including new staffing structures, data based residential curriculum and programming procedures.
email: joseph.skrivanek@suny.edu
Joseph Skrivanek is a Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry at Purchase College and the founding Director of the Baccalaureate and Beyond Community College Mentoring Program (BBCCM) at Purchase College. The program is designed to support students at seven SUNY community colleges in a seamless transition to Purchase College. The BBCCM Program received the President’s Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) from President Obama in 2011.
Skrivanek is presently leading the SUNY Replication Project that is replicating the activities of the Purchase BBCCMP throughout the SUNY System. Dr. Skrivanek received his bachelors and masters degrees in chemistry from the University of Scranton and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Pennsylvania State University. After postdoctoral work at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he joined the faculty at Purchase College in 1979. Dr. Skrivanek has held numerous leadership positions at Purchase College including Dean of Natural Sciences, and Chair of the two Middle States Steering Committees.
email: ruirui.sun@suny.edu
Dr. Sun is the Associate in Assessment and Data Analytics as well as the PRODiG Coordinator. Ruirui serves as a key adviser to ODEI on the measurement of diversity, equity, and inclusion progress across the SUNY campuses, particularly by creating dashboards and ongoing tracking and analysis of crucial diversity, equity, and inclusion indicators at SUNY System Administration and on the campuses. As the PRODiG coordinator, she is responsible for advancing the PRODiG initiative by facilitating communications with campus PRODiG contacts, informing program improvement based on analyzing data submitted by participating campuses, and coordinating with ODEI team members accountable for the programmatic elements.
Dr. Sun’s doctoral research characterizes patterns in the timing of college decisions, with respect to initial enrollment, interruptions, and graduation (or non-completion), and investigates the relationship between college timing decisions and individuals’ earnings trajectories from high school graduation into mid-career. For this work, she has won the highly competitive AERA (American Educational Research Association) dissertation grant, funded by the National Science Foundation. In directing attention to students at different life stages and with different college and labor market experiences, the findings from the research invite consideration of adaptations in college practices and higher education policies to increase flexibility and reach.
Dr. Sun served as the first Strategic Data Project Fellow at SUNY from October 2022 to September 2024. The Strategic Data Project (SDP) is based out of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. During the two-year Fellowship period, Dr. Sun endeavored to integrate data from various sources and conduct a thorough and well-situated investigation and analysis of faculty diversity at SUNY, with the aim to lay a solid foundation for SUNY to set data-informed goals and develop data-informed interventions to increase faculty diversity.
Before joining the ODEI team, Dr. Sun worked at the Rockefeller Institute of Government as a research analyst. There, she worked on a series of reports that aimed to evaluate and inform SUNY and the New York State's higher education policies and practices, including the economic impact of SUNY graduates, the effects of applied work-based learning at SUNY, and the college-level correctional education in New York State. Dr. Sun earned her PhD in Educational Policy and Leadership from the University at Albany and her Master’s in Economics of Education from Peking University.