Jamey Rorison, Ph.D., is a senior program officer on the U.S. Program Data team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he leads efforts to advance a field-driven movement to increase equitable postsecondary value. This builds on Dr. Rorison’s recent work leading the development and operation of the Postsecondary Value Commission, a first-of-its-kind initiative that brought together 30 diverse higher education, workforce, civil rights, research, and federal and state policy leaders to do three things: propose a definition of postsecondary value, develop a way to measure that value, and urge action to improve value and make it more equitable. Rorison also manages a grantmaking portfolio seeking to improve postsecondary data quality, use, and infrastructure at the local, state, and national levels.

Prior to joining the foundation, Dr. Rorison served as director of research and policy at the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), where he managed the Postsecondary Data Collaborative (PostsecData) and the National Postsecondary Data Infrastructure Expert Working Group, and also led research examining issues of college affordability and equitable college access and completion. Earlier in his career, Rorison was a research associate with the Institute for Research on Higher Education and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and an intern and consultant for the Education Trust. He also taught middle school language arts in Charles County, Maryland, and served as Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Training for Summit Educational Group.

Dr. Rorison is a contributing author to The First Year of College: Research, Theory, and Practice on Improving the Student Experience and Increasing Retention and The Attainment Agenda – State Policy Leadership in Higher Education, and has been published in the Journal for Research on Educational Effectiveness and the Enrollment Management Journal: Student Access, Finance, and Success in Higher Education. He serves on the editorial board of Higher Education Politics & Economics and served on the program committee for the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s 2016 annual meeting.  

Rorison earned his Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Pennsylvania, where his dissertation examined the role of financial aid and other resources in persistence toward a bachelor’s degree for students from low-income families. He also holds a master’s degree in higher education and a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, also from the University of Pennsylvania. Among other accolades, he is recipient of the 2021 Association for the Study of Higher Education Leadership Award recognizing his “visibility and support to the field of higher education and demonstrated contributions of the study of higher education and its connection to policy formation.”