Iliana G. Perez
Iliana G. Perez, Ph.D. (she/her) serves as the Director of Research & Entrepreneurship at Immigrants Rising. Over the past decade, Dr. Perez has developed resources and training to inform undocumented people about entrepreneurship; has developed programming to help undocumented people start or grow their businesses; and has worked closely with people and organizations to build an entrepreneurship ecosystem geared toward connecting and supporting undocumented entrepreneurs. In 2021, Dr. Perez began leading the implementation of the SEED initiative, a $5.4 million grant from the state of California to provide entrepreneurship training, funding and technical support to immigrant entrepreneurs across the state. Iliana holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Fresno State, a M.A. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Education Policy from Claremont Graduate University.