Skip to content Skip to navigation

Jomayra Herrera

Photo of Jomayra Herrera

Jomayra Herrera,
MA '15 Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies

Mentoring first-generation and low-income students

Just a few years after earning her master’s in policy, organization and leadership studies from GSE, Jomayra Herrera, MA ’15, was named one of Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30” in education in 2018. After the master’s program she worked briefly at an edtech startup before joining the Emerson Collective, a social justice organization founded by Laurene Powell Jobs. She’s also deeply involved with an initiative at her hometown school district in Orlando, Florida, that helps first-generation and low-income students get into and adjust to life at top colleges. A first-gen student herself, Herrera says a program like it would’ve eased her own transition to college. “I moved across the country to go to Stanford,” she says. “I loved my experience, but it would’ve been helpful to have a mentor.” Last year, to help spotlight women of color working in venture capital, she and @_maria_salamanca developed a public list of Latinas on investment teams at VC firms around the country—a compilation they hope will be useful to startups building their boards, venture firms searching for new talent and conference organizers looking for speakers. “It’s a short list,” she says, “but it’s growing!” 

June 26, 2018
Photo by Ilana M. Horwitz, PhD '19

More Community stories

A family of four, Gabriel and Olivia and their two children, bundled up but in an arid landscape
Olivia Pei Lin Lim and Gabriel Kah Kay Cheong, MA '23 Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies
Bringing the family to Stanford GSE
Read this story
photo of Andre Nudelman, arms folded, in a purple plaid jacket and with Stanford arches behind
Andre Nudelman, Entrepreneur-in-Residence
Mentoring innovators in education
Read this story
Photo of Rebecca Zeigler Mano
Rebecca Zeigler Mano, MA '92 Stanford Teacher Education Program
Changing lives in Zimbabwe
Read this story
Back to the Top