Juan Castellanos serves as a Basic Needs Counselor and Coordinator at Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC), where he leads efforts to advance student equity, retention, and holistic well-being. Through his work, he oversees and expands critical services including food access programs, emergency financial assistance, CalFresh outreach, and coordinated case management, ensuring students have the foundational support needed to persist and succeed. Juan was born and raised in South Los Angeles and El Monte. He is a first-generation college student who attended public schools, proudly graduated from a continuation high school, and began his higher education journey at Rio Hondo College. After transferring, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from California State University, Los Angeles, and a Master of Science in College Counseling and Student Services from California State University, Northridge. Deeply committed to equity and student success, Juan’s work centers on supporting disproportionately impacted and historically marginalized student populations. He has served students at Rio Hondo College, Los Angeles Trade Technical College, and East Los Angeles College.

Mark Huelsman is the Director of Policy & Advocacy at The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, where he focuses on federal policy efforts to modernize higher education and safety net policies to support students’ basic needs and improve college affordability. He also currently serves as a Senior Fellow with Protect Borrowers, a nonprofit organization fighting to build an economy where debt doesn’t limit opportunity. Mark is a nationally recognized expert on college affordability and equity in higher education. He has testified in the U.S. Senate and appeared on NPR, Fox News, C-SPAN, Yahoo! Finance, Al Jazeera, and Bloomberg TV. His writing and work have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Slate, Vox, MarketWatch, The Nation, The Guardian, Inside Higher Ed, the New Republic, The American Prospect, The Hill, and U.S. News and World Report. In 2016, he was named to the Politico 50 guide to the thinkers, doers, and visionaries transforming American politics for his role in sparking a national policy conversation around debt-free college.

Aaron Kunst has served as Priority Area Director for Food & Nutrition Security in Higher Education and Director of the nation’s largest CalFresh (SNAP) Outreach college network, shaping statewide strategy and coalition-building efforts that translate lived experience into actionable policy. This work streamlines access to food benefits by reducing barriers for campuses, counties, and students themselves. With over a decade of dedicated work at the intersection of public benefits, food security, and higher education, Aaron believes in a future of truly accessible and resourced public benefits. Aaron’s broader experience includes accessing and navigating public benefits as a college student himself, leading the National Science Foundation’s Stigma Out of SNAP (SOS) Project in partnership with the UCLA Anderson School of Management, serving on the Racial Equity and Implicit Bias Statewide Initiative Committee, chairing the Butte Environmental Council Board of Directors, leading the California State University Basic Needs Training & Resource Center, and serving as a member of the UC Healthy Campus Network at UC San Diego.

Andrea Lara Jara brings a community-based lens to this committee. She is a social work intern in the CalWORKs Department at Moreno Valley College and began graduate-level training (MSW) at Cal Poly Humboldt in June 2026. Through case management, policy advocacy, and lived experience, she supports families pursuing economic stability through higher education. She is a former Michelson Philanthropies Student Fellow (2025), where her work focused on student-informed emergency financial aid practices. These experiences have led her to understand that personal and societal problems are connected, so their solutions should also be connected and work together. Andrea strives to ensure that funding decisions across institutions reflect the realities of the communities they aim to serve.

Vincent J. Rasso is the Director of Government Relations for the University of California Student Association (UCSA), where he leads the state and federal policy agenda for over 237,000 UC students across the state. Through navigating legislative and budget advocacy, he works with student leaders, coalition partners, UC and state leaders to identify and advance policy priorities that center equity and support the accessibility, affordability, and quality of current and future UC students. He manages event programming, while supporting mentorship and leadership development for the student board of directors across the UC. Vincent is a proud UC Riverside alumni with a bachelor’s in political science, the first in his family to earn a college degree. He is on the CA Latino Capitol Association Board and the Cradle-to-Career Data System Community Engagement Advisory Board, and is the former Student Affairs Manager at the Campaign for College Opportunity, bringing a wealth of knowledge and expertise in higher education policy, public affairs and coalition-building, communications and research, statewide and regional student and community engagement, and policy advocacy.