Our Staff

Mushtaq Gunja serves as executive director of the Carnegie Classification systems and senior vice president at ACE, where he is in charge of running and reimagining the Carnegie framework. Prior to joining ACE, Mushtaq served as assistant dean in academic affairs at Georgetown University Law Center (DC), where he was in charge of academic policies for the law school, including accreditation, …

Sara Gast is the deputy executive director for the Carnegie Classifications, supporting the redesign and development of the Basic and Social & Economic classifications. She joined ACE in May 2022, and prior to that served as the chief of staff and executive director of strategic communications at the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, a K-12 nonprofit that works to ensure …

Paul LeMahieu is the senior vice president of the Carnegie Foundation. Previously at Carnegie, he managed the Foundation’s programmatic work and directed the work of the Carnegie Hub, which supports the networks the Foundation convenes to engage problems of education practice in the field. LeMahieu came to Carnegie from the National Writing Project (NWP) at the University of California, Berkeley where …

Marisol Morales is the executive director of the Carnegie Elective Classifications at the American Council on Education. In this role, she provides conceptual leadership and operational oversight to the elective classifications’ work in the United States, Australia, and Canada. This includes the collaborative development of and responsibility for all initiatives; oversight and facilitation of relevant national and international advisory committees; conceptualizing …

Amelia Ortiz serves as the Associate Director of the Carnegie Elective Classifications at the American Council on Education. In this role she provides day-to-day support for the operations and administration of the Carnegie Elective Classifications. She has over fifteen years of experience working in various higher education positions, specifically focusing on developing retention and completion initiatives in Adult Education and Student …

Cammie Jones-Friedrichs is the Director of the Carnegie Elective for Community Engagement. Cammie, who is originally from Dallas, TX, has spent over 16 years in higher education and nonprofit leadership, continually paving the way for social justice and civic engagement. She is a first-generation college student with a B.S. in Kinesiology from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. …

John Saltmarsh is Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Leadership in Education in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He has published widely on community-engaged teaching, learning and research, and organizational change in higher education, including, the co-edited book with Mathew Johnson, “The Elective Carnegie Community Engagement Classification: Constructing a Successful Application …

Carla Ortega Santori is the Strategic Initiatives Manager at the Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University, where she manages the Carnegie Elective Classification in Leadership for Public Purpose. Prior to this role, she developed learning and development strategies at a leading healthcare company in Puerto Rico. She has also worked as an Executive Recruiter and volunteered as an AmeriCorps VISTA. …

Victor (Vic) M. H. Borden is Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the Project Director for IU’s Charting the Future initiative and directed the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education from 2014 through 2022. Borden’s prior roles also include as Associate Vice President for University Planning, Institutional Research and Accountability at Indiana University …

Arman Zhumazhanov is a doctoral student in Higher Education Administration at Indiana University Bloomington. His research interest focuses on exploring the intricacies of data-informed decision-making policies and critical analysis of corporate governance within higher education institutions. Before stepping into the doctoral program, Zhumazhanov gained valuable experience in higher education administration roles in Kazakhstan. Serving as the Chief of Staff to the …