Emily Passias serves as the Deputy Executive Director of Advance CTE and has built her career around helping states and communities better connect education to the world of work through the development and implementation of high-quality career pathways.
Prior to joining Advance CTE, Emily served as the Vice President for Policy at the Linked Learning Alliance, where she led efforts to design, advocate for, and implement state policies that connect college and career. Prior to joining the Alliance, Emily served as the Director of Career Readiness at Education Strategy Group, where she led the firm’s credentials of value initiatives, worked with large and diverse school districts across the country to build and implement high quality career pathways, and designed tools and strategies to ensure that equity is centered in in career and postsecondary readiness work.
Prior to joining ESG, Emily served as the Director of Career-Technical Education at the Ohio Department of Education. In that role, Emily’s work focused on designing policies that catalyze career pathway expansion, quality and industry alignment for all learners. Emily also led the Department’s development of Ohio’s career-focused pathways to high school graduation, as well as the Department’s industry-recognized credential initiatives. During her tenure at the Ohio Department of Education, Emily also served as the Assistant Director in the Office of Accountability at the Ohio Department of Education, where she led the development and implementation of the nation’s first A-F school report card focused on Career Technical Education.
In addition to her education policy experience, Emily taught in the sociology department at The Ohio State University for many years, where her research and teaching focused on race, gender, and socioeconomic inequality. Emily brings this experience to her work, always pushing to ensure that education policies are developed and implemented with equity as the guiding principle. Emily earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in Sociology at The Ohio State University, and completed the Strategic Data Project Fellowship through the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University.
