California Team

Paul Collins, Executive Director - Northern California

With a B.A. from Duke University (1986), and an M.A. in Organizational Development and Transformation from the California Institute of Integral Studies (2000), Collins brings to College Summit a variety of experience in the public and private sectors. Collins spent 12 years working as Assistant Vice President and Relationship Manager at ChaseMellon Shareholder Services. Prior to his work at ChaseMellon, Collins served as a Crisis Intervention Teacher with the New York City Board of Education.

Felicia Martin, Sr. High School Coordinator - Northern California

Felicia is a native Houstonian, and graduate of Rice University (1999) with a B.A. in Sociology. She spent 3 years in Chicago working in Multicultural Affairs and Admissions for Northwestern University and later as the Media Liaison for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago. She then moved to California in 2002 to develop a newly created position within admissions at California Lutheran University as the Coordinator of Diversity and Community Outreach. While at CLU, she helped design programs and recruitment strategies for low income communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties (including bringing College Summit to campus in 2004). After serving as a Writing Coach at the 2003 USC Workshop, and having spent one year as a Director of Admission at an independent high school in Berkeley, CA, she returned to CS full time with its expansion to Northern California.

Amy Pimentel, Operations Associate - Northern California

Amy was born and raised in the small town of Hanford in the heart of California’s Central Valley. Her journey through higher education began at College of The Sequoias, a community college in Visalia, California where she earned an AA in Liberal Arts (2000) and was a staff writer for The Campus News. In 2001, she moved to Washington, D.C. where she was a City Year Corps Member participating in the implementation of a drug education and HIV prevention program in public schools, as well as working in after school programs. Amy transferred to New York University’s School of Social Work in 2002 and graduated in 2004 with a BSW. Prior to joining College Summit, she worked as a family law legal assistant, substitute teacher, teacher's assistant, and tutor.

Diedra Barber, Sr. High School Coordinator - Northern California

Alexis Shah, Program Director - Southern California

Alexis holds a B.A. in Communications, with an emphasis in Public Speaking (1999) from CSUN, and has an extensive background in high tech business process consulting from the corporate sector as a New Business Development Manager. First time travels to various regions in Pakistan, Dubai, Argentina and attending the Skoll World Forum in March of 2007 at University of Oxford, stirred her deeply to re-evaluate her personal vision and mission; inspiring her to seek a role with an organization where social change is sustainable and measureable. She believes that education and increasing college enrollment rates in lower income communities is the silver bullet to end all forms of poverty and changes the world. Alexis joined College Summit in October, 2007. She enjoys creative writing, story telling, and continues to takes classes at UCLA to hone her craft. Two quotes she’s coined on the journey include: “by genuinely helping others, we help ourselves” as well as, “be stirred and inspire others”.

Ed Rice, High School Coordinator - Southern California

A graduate of Howard University (B.A., 1995) and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (M.S.J., 2002), Ed began his career as a reporter. He has written for various publications, including the Orange County Register, Vibe and The Source magazines. Most recently he served as the program manager for Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Inc. in Los Angeles and supervised its Youth Point of View newspaper. Ed has also taught fifth grade and high school English. He brought his passion for working with youth to College Summit in December 2006 and continues to run a mentoring program in Los Angeles.

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