American Council Of Trustees and Alumni

Anne D. Neal, President

Ms. Neal co-founded the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and has been president since 2003.

For over 15 years, Ms. Neal has been a prominent national player in higher education reform, publishing widely and appearing frequently on radio and television, including Fox Business News, CNN, Fox News, WGN, and National Public Radio. She has authored or co-authored numerous ACTA studies on historical illiteracy, federal accreditation, governance, intellectual pluralism and cost, and contributed chapters to Reforming the Politically Correct University (AEI Press, 2009) and Accountability in American Higher Education (Palgrave MacMillan, forthcoming). She has also convened higher education conferences under the auspices of the Philanthropy Roundtable. In 2007, and then again in 2010, Ms. Neal was appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity which advises the U.S. Secretary of Education on federal accreditation.

Ms. Neal has provided expert testimony before the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, the U.S. Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee, the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Commission, the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and in many state capitals, and presented at conferences sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the University of Notre Dame, the Foreign Policy Association, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Montana State University, the American Association of University Professors and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

Prior to joining ACTA, Ms. Neal served as General Counsel and Congressional Liaison for the National Endowment for the Humanities. She also worked as a First Amendment and communications lawyer for Rogers & Wells and Wiley, Rein & Fielding.

Ms. Neal graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Harvard College with an A.B. in American history and literature. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School where she was president of the Harvard Journal on Legislation. She has served on the boards of many cultural and civic organizations, and currently is a director of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, and Casey Trees.

Michael B. Poliakoff, Policy Director

Dr. Poliakoff became part of the ACTA team in March 2010. He oversees ACTA’s programming and publications and works directly with our constituents on behalf of higher education reform. He previously served as vice president for academic affairs and research at the University of Colorado and in senior roles at the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Council on Teacher Quality, the American Academy for Liberal Education, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

He has taught at Georgetown University, George Washington University, Hillsdale College, the University ofIllinois at Chicago, and Wellesley College. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Yale University and went on to study at Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar, and the University of Michigan, where he earned a Ph.D. in classical studies. He has been a junior fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies, and his research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, and the Alexander Von Humboldt Siftung. He is the author of numerous books and journal articles in classical studies and education policy and has received the American Philological Association’s Excellence in Teaching Award and the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Distinguished Service to Education Award.

Ms. Gibson joined ACTA in 2010 and is responsible for our development and programmatic growth. She brings over 15 years of experience in public policy, higher education, and philanthropy. Before joining ACTA, she served as Director of Community Relations at The Philanthropy Roundtable; Special Assistant, Public Liaison, to the U.S. Department of Labor; Director of the Young Leaders Program and Job Bank Coordinator at The Heritage Foundation; and Director of Alumni Relations at Grove City College. She spent the fall of 2009 at the Maxim Institute in Auckland, New Zealand working on a project that will address welfare reform in the country.

Ms. Gibson holds a B.S. in biology from Grove City College and an M.A. in higher education administration from Slippery Rock University. She has been involved with the Junior Leagues of Washington, D.C. and Youngstown, Ohio, and also served as a tutor for College Bound, a mentoring program for D.C. public school students, for five years.

Lauri Kempson, Vice President

Ms. Kempson has been with ACTA for over a decade and oversees all administrative aspects of our day-to-day operations. Prior to joining the organization, she owned a desktop publishing company in Los Angeles. In addition, she served on the governing boards of Ivanhoe Elementary School and All Children Great and Small, and also worked with local government and community organizations on issues of neighborhood safety and outreach. She has also written technical manuals for Merrill Lynch in New York City. She has a B.F.A. in Theatre with a concentration in English from Stephens College.

Heather Lakemacher, Senior Program Officer

Ms. Lakemacher manages ACTA’s staff and oversees trustee communications and our series of state higher education report cards. She is a graduate of Shimer College, where she served as a student trustee, and of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation’s Associate Program, in which she received key management training. Previously, Ms. Lakemacher worked as an administrative assistant at Zurich North America and a customer service manager for Cedar Roofing Company, in her native Illinois.

David Azerrad, Program Officer & Senior Researcher

Mr. Azerrad oversees ACTA’s media outreach, while also writing speeches and undertaking high-level research projects. He is currently completing his Ph.D. in politics at the University of Dallas, where he taught “Principles of American Government” to undergraduates. His written work has appeared both in scholarly journals and in newspapers. Previously, Mr. Azerrad was a foreign correspondent in Malaysia affiliated with The Times of London and he edited a number of publications in his native Canada. He received an M.A. in political science from Carleton University in Ottawa and a B.A. in journalism and political science from Concordia University in Montreal.

Michael Schilling, Office Manager

Mr. Schilling is ACTA’s office manager. He grew up in Cincinnati before moving to Taipei, Taiwan to be an exchange student at Chien Kuo Senior High School. He then enrolled at Tufts University where he earned a B.A. magna cum laude in international relations and Chinese. During college, Mr. Schilling studied at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, and after graduation he returned to Taipei to work. Over his career he has been a machinist, a ballroom dance instructor, a teacher, a law clerk, a children’s theater performer, and an editor.

Tom Bako, Program Associate

Mr. Bako is responsible for research and the upkeep of our college-guide website, WhatWillTheyLearn.com. Prior to joining ACTA, he served as a research intern at the Heritage Foundation and as a student academic adviser at Towson University, from which he graduated cum laude in 2009 with a B.S. in political science. A longtime debater, he is also a judge for the Baltimore Urban Debate League.

Brianna Edelblut, Program Associate and Assistant to the President

Ms. Edelblut assists with ACTA’s fundraising, works on other projects with the President and Vice President, and participates in the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation’s Associate Program. She earned a B.A. in literature from Patrick Henry College, where she received national recognition for her moot court skills and sat on the board of the drama troupe. She has also worked as a researcher at the Clapham Group, as an intern at Open Doors USA, and as a scheduler at Control Solutions International in her native New Hampshire.

Jose Herrera, Program Associate

Mr. Herrera assists with ACTA’s media outreach and other projects, and he participates in the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation’s Associate Program. He played two years of college baseball at the University of Toronto and earned a B.A. in economics from George Mason University. He is also a managing partner with Leadership Team Development and a former research associate at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Eric Markley, Project Officer

Mr. Markley contributes to ACTA’s college-guide website WhatWillTheyLearn.com, edits our quarterly newsletter Inside Academe, and assists with other projects. He is a former college and university instructor who has also taught English in Taiwan and South Korea and worked at shelters for runaway teens and the homeless in Chicago. He holds an M.A. in English from the University of Central Florida and a B.A. in communications from Moody Bible Institute. In 2008, he spent seven months backpacking solo from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail, walking 2,000 miles across 14 states.