Tiffany Dena Loftin
Executive Director, United States Student Association
Tiffany Dena Loftin is a nationally recognized organizer, strategist, and educator whose work centers on building power in Black and Brown communities through grassroots campaigns, leadership development, and civic engagement. Loftin is a first-generation college graduate from Los Angeles, she studied American Studies and Political Science at UC Santa Cruz, where her journey as a movement leader began organizing for the Federal Dream Act and registering voters for Barack Obama’s first presidential race in 2008.
Her work spans from the streets to the halls in government. Loftin has trained thousands of young leaders and workers, organized winning grassroots campaigns for student debt relief and police accountability. She led campaigns at the Grassroots Law Project that helped end capital punishment in two states and coordinated the coalition for the March on Wasington in 2021. She also led three racial and artist justice delegation to Palestine to connect global movements for liberation and resist state violence.
Appointed by President Barack Obama to the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, Loftin has held senior national roles at the AFL-CIO, NAACP, AFT, NEA, and CWA- AFA. She currently serves as Interim Executive Director of the United States Student Association, leads its national relaunch, teaches at UC Santa Cruz, and hosts How We Get Free, a podcast for organizers and changemakers. She also serves on the board of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led network in the country.
With a deep belief in collective power, cultural strategy, and radical imagination, Loftin continues to equip and inspire new generations to build real power and improve people’s lives.
Mike Pierce
Executive Director and Co-Founder, Protect Borrowers
Mike Pierce is Executive Director and co-founder of the Protect Borrowers (formerly Student Borrower Protection Center). Mike is an attorney, advocate, and former senior regulator who spent more than a decade fighting for student loan borrowers’ rights on Capitol Hill and at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Before he left government service to start Protect Borrowers, for seven years, Mike was the CFPB’s lead subject-matter expert on higher education and consumer protection.
