Michele Siqueiros ’95 has been selected as a recipient of a 2024 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award. The award recognizes leaders in California whose innovative solutions to critical state challenges are improving lives and creating opportunities throughout the state.
Siqueiros serves as the president of The Campaign for College Opportunity, a nonprofit policy advocacy and research organization founded in 2004 and dedicated to expanding college access so that more students can attend college and thrive.
As part of Siqueiros’ selection, the Foundation gave her organization a grant of $350,000 along with additional resources to assist them in their work. The Foundation also provided similar grant amounts to the other five organizations included in this year’s group of recipients.
Michele Siqueiros ’95
“The James Irvine Foundation is an important force for social change in our state, and it’s an honor to have my work and my organization’s work recognized with this award,” Siqueiros said. “Access to higher education changes lives and lifts up society, and I’m grateful for the Foundation’s support in this important effort.”
The daughter of a seamstress and the first in her family to go to college, Siqueiros also serves on the boards of the California Endowment, Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles, Community Coalition, and Pitzer’s Board of Trustees.
Her other advocacy work includes her 2019 appointment by former Senate Pro Tem Leader Toni Atkins to the Student-Centered Funding Formula Oversight Committee. In 2020 Governor Gavin Newsom asked her to serve on the California Higher Education Recovery with Equity Taskforce. She previously served on the California Student Aid Commission as a gubernatorial appointee.
