I am a higher education leader, researcher, and consultant whose work focuses on educational access, enrollment strategy, and institutional change. For more than a decade, I have worked across public and private universities to develop enrollment strategies, strengthen admissions and recruitment operations, build institutional partnerships, and expand pathways to higher education.

My work brings together research and practice. As an enrollment leader and consultant, I have led teams, advised institutions, designed recruitment and enrollment strategies, and partnered across academic and administrative units to address complex institutional challenges. As a scholar, my work sits at the intersection of higher education policy, history of education, and Critical Race Theory, with a particular focus on college access and admissions. Drawing on archival research, oral history, and policy analysis, I examine how institutional decisions and educational policies shape access and representation, as well as how scholars, practitioners, and communities have challenged inequitable systems and worked to expand educational opportunity.

Across both my scholarship and professional practice, I am interested in how institutions translate evidence into action and how the lessons of educational history can inform more effective and equitable higher education policy and practice.

A native of the working-class community of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, Dr. Peña's professional and scholarly work has been shaped by a longstanding interest in who gains access to higher education, how institutions make decisions about opportunity, and how universities can better serve the communities around them. Dr. Peña has held leadership roles across the University of California, California State University, University of Southern California, and Claremont Colleges systems. Most recently, he served as Director and Chief Admissions Officer at San Francisco State University, where he led undergraduate admissions and recruitment strategy and operations. His broader professional experience includes graduate and international admissions, enrollment management, strategic recruitment, student engagement, and institutional consulting. As a consultant with Ruffalo Noel Levitz, he has also supported colleges and universities in strengthening enrollment operations, strategy, technology, and organizational effectiveness.

His research examines educational access, higher education policy, and institutional decision-making. His doctoral research recovered the history of the University of California's Latino Eligibility Task Force, examining how scholars, administrators, and community leaders sought to expand Latina/o access to the University of California during a consequential period of admissions and affirmative action policy change.

Outside of higher education, Dr. Peña is an avid traveler, lifelong Los Angeles sports fan, and dog dad to Benito, a French Bulldog with considerably more authority than his size would suggest.