The California Chronicles
ABOUT
Dr. Kristin Cornelius is a first-generation college graduate and educator with over twenty years of experience supporting student success across multiple institutions including the University of Cambridge, UCLA, UC Irvine, and California State University, Northridge.
As an instructor of record for more than thirty courses, she has worked extensively with underserved student populations, including hundreds of first-generation, Pell-eligible, and minority students, providing academic guidance on degree navigation, financial aid, institutional barriers, and graduation planning. Her teaching and advising experience spans developmental education, gateway courses, and upper-division curriculum across English, Communications, Knowledge Management, and Business Informatics.
At CSUN, she served in Academic Affairs and Planning and led digital thesis software and curriculum development initiatives, giving her deep institutional knowledge of organizational structures, cross-departmental collaboration, and the specific challenges facing student retention and graduation at a Hispanic-Serving Institution. Her work consistently focuses on equity-minded approaches that address both academic planning and the systemic obstacles students encounter.
As a researcher, she has been Lead Investigator on multiple projects examining information access, transparency, and user experience, with findings presented at international conferences and published in peer-reviewed venues. Her scholarship connects directly to her student-facing work: understanding how people navigate complex systems and how to design better interfaces between institutions and the communities they serve.
She also brings extensive experience in governance, documentation, compliance, and technical communication from industry roles as Policy Analyst, Sr. Technical Writer, and Information Configuration Manager, which is expertise that informs her understanding of institutional processes, regulatory frameworks, and organizational change management.