Luís Aguilar-Herrera, MS, MEd

Biography

Welcome to my ePortfolio!

I am a higher education professional and scholar-practitioner based at the University of Nevada, Reno, where I serve as Associate Director of Student Government within the ASUN Student Government and Center for Student Engagement. Since March 2024, I have advised the Undergraduate Student Senate, led programming in civic engagement and student leadership development, and worked alongside students who are often learning for the first time what it means to hold institutional power and use it responsibly. That work is not separate from my scholarship. It is the site where theory either holds up or falls apart.

In May 2025, I completed my MS in Psychology with a Positive Psychology concentration at Arizona State University, earning the degree With Distinction and a 4.00 GPA. That credential is not incidental to how I practice; it is the philosophical infrastructure beneath everything I do. The constructs of agency, resiliency, and strengths-based development that I studied formally in Positive Psychology shaped how I read student development theory, design programs, advise student leaders under pressure, and understand what it means for a student to grow. That grounding preceded and informed my subsequent graduate study: in August 2026, I completed my Master of Education in Higher and Postsecondary Education, also at Arizona State University, With Distinction and a 4.00 GPA and bringing formal disciplinary depth to a practice already rooted in strengths-based thinking.

I grew up in rural northern Nevada, near the southern Idaho border, as a first-generation college student and the child of immigrants. That background is not incidental to my work; it is the source of my deepest professional commitments. When I advocate for first-generation students, rural students, and students from immigrant families, I am not performing empathy from a distance. I know what it costs to arrive at a university without a map. For a long time, I shied away from public recognition. I have come to understand that stepping forward, naming what I know, making my work visible, and occupying professional space with confidence are part of my personal, academic, and professional growth and an act of leadership. This ePortfolio is an act of claiming visibility that was never modeled for me, and I hope it serves as evidence to the students I serve that this kind of presence is both possible and worth pursuing.

“True leadership lifts everyone, not just those already positioned to succeed.”

Educational Background

My formal education reflects the scholar-practitioner identity I have spent fifteen years building in practice. I hold a Master of Education in Higher and Postsecondary Education and a Master of Science in Psychology with a concentration in Positive Psychology, both from Arizona State University, completed with Distinction and a 4.00 GPA. The sequence was intentional: my MS in Positive Psychology preceded and philosophically grounded my MEd in Higher Education, which means I arrived at the formal literature of student development theory already shaped by a disciplinary framework for understanding human flourishing, agency, and resilience. I do not experience these as two separate credentials. I read student development theory through a Positive Psychology lens, asking not just what developmental stage a student is in, but what conditions would allow them to recognize and act on their own potential within that stage. My undergraduate foundation, a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a Minor in Business Administration and a Paralegal Certificate from the University of Nevada, Reno, reflects the same pattern: a commitment to breadth across human development, organizational systems, and institutional accountability that has defined my professional practice ever since.

Professional Experience

My professional trajectory spans more than ten years of progressive leadership across K–12 education administration and higher education student affairs. I spent thirteen years in increasingly senior executive administrative roles at Washoe County School District, Nevada's second-largest district, serving 61,000 students, where I developed deep competency in organizational management, budget stewardship, legislative liaison work, and cross-functional leadership at an institutional scale. In March 2024, I transitioned into higher education as Associate Director of Student Government at the University of Nevada, Reno, where I advise the ASUN Undergraduate Student Senate, lead shared governance processes, maintain full budget authority over student government allocations totaling $3 million, and co-lead civic engagement initiatives that contributed to UNR's 2025–2026 Voter Friendly Campus designation. In Spring 2026, I completed a graduate practicum in Student-Athlete Development at Nevada Wolf Pack Athletics, where I applied student development theory, Positive Psychology frameworks, and intersectional approaches to NCAA Division I programming across 136+ supervised hours. That arc from public school administration to student affairs to applied practitioner scholarship is not a series of career pivots. It is a single, continuous commitment to the institutional conditions that allow people to thrive.

“True leadership lifts everyone, not just those already positioned to succeed.”