Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement (MESA)
Juanita Muniz-Torres
MESA Programs Director
Juanita Muniz-Torres has held progressively more advanced leadership positions in college access and academic preparation programs for educationally disadvantaged students for more than 22 years, and brings a powerful combination of executive management experience and direct program service delivery to the table. She has developed and executed numerous successful models and projects with demonstrated success in increasing the college-going rates and academic achievement levels of many under-represented students throughout California.
From September 1984 to June 1989, Muniz-Torres worked for five years as the associate director of MESA's university-level engineering program at California State University Fresno. She served MESA's pre-college program and university-level students as Assistant to the Dean for Diversity at CSU Fresno for eight years from July 1989 to August 1997. She was MESA's Statewide pre-college program director at the University of California Office of the president for nine years from September 1997 to February 2006, overseeing operations for 24 MESA pre-college centers in California. In March 2006, she was appointed to her present position as MESA's statewide director of operations at the UC Office of the President. In her present capacity, she oversees 19 pre-college, 10 university-level, and 29 community college MESA centers in California. She earned her bachelor of science in Quantitative Analysis and her master of business administration, both from CSU Fresno.