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Dr. Soraya M. Coley is the sixth president of Cal Poly Pomona. An accomplished educator and administrator, Dr. Coley is the first woman and first African American to be named president of Cal Poly Pomona.

As president, Dr. Coley leads an institution with more than 26,000 students and 2,600 faculty and staff. Under her leadership, Cal Poly Pomona has continued to grow its legacy as the most diverse polytechnic university in the country and as a national leader in promoting social and economic mobility. Dr. Coley formally took office in January 2015, and during her tenure enrollment has grown by 2,000 students and graduation rates have reached historic levels.

Prior to coming to Cal Poly Pomona, Coley held senior leadership positions at the CSU campuses in Bakersfield and Fullerton.

Coley earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. She completed her master’s and doctoral degrees in social planning and social research from Bryn Mawr College where she was recognized as a distinguished alumna. She is married to Ron Coley, who served two decades of active duty as a United States Marine Corps pilot, retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before building a distinguished career in public service and higher education administration.

Dr. Junn has a remarkable and extensive 35-year history with the CSU, having worked at five other CSU campuses prior to joining Stan State. She served as provost and vice president at CSU Dominguez Hills, provost and vice president at San Jose State University, associate provost at Fresno State, associate dean of the College of Health and Human Development at CSU Fullerton, and assistant professor at CSU San Bernardino. She also served as a visiting professor at Indiana University.

She currently serves on numerous Boards, including AASCU’s Millennium Leadership Initiative (MLI) and is a Governor-appointed member of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and for the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley. In addition, she has received a number of awards such as being recognized as among the “Top 25 Leading Women in Higher Education” by Diverse Issues in Higher Ed (2017); recipient of the “Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien Education Leadership Award” from the Asian Pacific Fund (2013); “Outstanding Woman of 2020”, by the Stanislaus County Commission for Women (2020); and the “Distinguished Education Leadership Award” by the College of Education, California State University, Fullerton (2020).

President Junn earned a bachelor’s degree in experimental and cognitive psychology from the University of Michigan, where she graduated cum laude and received high honors in psychology. She obtained both a master’s and Ph.D. in cognitive and developmental psychology from Princeton University. In addition, she holds a Management Development Program Certificate from Harvard University. She is widely published and has written numerous peer-reviewed research and journal articles on topics, such as supporting the success of underserved students, the importance of university-community engagement and strategies for supporting non-tenure-track faculty -- especially women and minorities, as well as promoting innovative teaching strategies.

She is the first Korean-American woman president appointed in the US to a four-year public institution. Her husband is a retired physicist, and her son and his wife are faculty in the History department at Brandeis University.