Denise Woltering Vargas is the Associate Director for Operations, Finance, and Communications. Denise has an extensive background with over 15 years of experience in higher education and program management. She manages all grants, sponsored projects, plus their fiscal management and compliance, and oversees media initiatives. Before joining the Education Research Alliance, Denise designed teacher education programs through a U.S. Department of Education grant at the Stone Center for Latin American Studies managing teacher training programs abroad and creating new educational resources for the k-12 classroom. In addition, she has over five years of experience teaching pre-certification students in a unique service-learning course, Education in a Diverse Society. She holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) focused on Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship from Tulane University - and a Master of Arts in International Communication from American University.