Roman Ruiz

Roman Ruiz is a senior researcher, higher education subject matter expert, and project leader at AIR. He holds more than 14 years of experience in the field of higher education, specializing in issues related to college and career readiness, student financial aid, policies and practices designed to improve college student success, and post-college workforce outcomes.

At AIR, Dr. Ruiz conceptualizes and leads quantitative research tasks such as data collection and processing, data analysis and reporting, and data visualization. He has expertise working with large administrative datasets, having conducted research and analysis using student and course records from the National Student Clearinghouse, the Maryland Longitudinal Data System, and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, among others. In addition, he has been a Survey Director for the National Center for Education Statistics’ Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). In this role, he managed and updated enrollment and admissions survey components, developed informational products (e.g., resource pages, blog posts) for data reporters and users, and presented on IPEDS topics at national and international convenings. Most recently, he served as principal investigator for a research study that examined the geographic variation and institution- and community-level predictors of economic value (i.e., earnings premium) provided by U.S. community colleges.

Outside of AIR, Dr. Ruiz has served as an inaugural member of the Dean’s Executive Advisory Board for the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas and has been an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, teaching the graduate-level course Data Analytics and Visualization in Higher Education.

Prior to joining AIR, he was a pre-doctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE) and held summer positions with the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Research (NCER); Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development (OPEPD); and the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. He began his career in higher education as a student services professional at the University of Arkansas, serving as a college access counselor and later as an undergraduate academic advisor.