Eliz­a­beth Cutler

Eliz­a­beth Cut­ler grad­u­ated from Occi­den­tal Col­lege in May 2009, where she majored in Pol­i­tics with a minor in Span­ish. While at Occi­den­tal, Eliz­a­beth served as Pres­i­dent of the col­lege chap­ter of Mor­tar Board, worked as a peer writ­ing advi­sor, and devel­oped an unhealthy love of col­lege ori­en­ta­tions after three rounds as an ori­en­ta­tion leader. She also stud­ied abroad in Val­paraíso, Chile where she com­pleted an inde­pen­dent research project on Chilean uni­ver­sity stu­dents’ polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion. Now a can­di­date for a Master’s in Gov­ern­ment at George­town Uni­ver­sity, she main­tains an inter­est in issues in higher edu­ca­tion and is very excited to be a part of the social media team for BetterGrads.

Matt Gagnon

Matt is cur­rently a fourth-year polit­i­cal sci­ence stu­dent at UC Davis, pray­ing that the econ­omy bounces back by next June. He is a fan of pol­i­tics, sports, and pick­les. He also likes writ­ing for Bet­ter­Grads, and hopes that more peo­ple will read his posts.

Lisa Rau

Lisa Rau is a writer, pianist and speech & debate coach based out of Los Ange­les. Hav­ing vol­un­teered for many youth-centered orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing Parker-Anderson Learn­ing Cen­ters, the YMCA and the Boys & Girls Club of Amer­ica, Lisa brings a blend of edu­ca­tional blog­ging, col­lege net­work­ing and a rhetor­i­cal edge to Bet­ter­Grads. She recently has con­tributed to other orga­ni­za­tions that use a college-tinted lens to men­tor stu­dents, such as nuRe­sume and Yol­lege, Inc.

Prior to join­ing Bet­ter­Grads, Lisa grad­u­ated from San Fran­cisco State Uni­ver­sity with bachelor's degrees in Cre­ative Writ­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies while work­ing as a writer for SF State News. She was named "Hood Recip­i­ent" (top grad­u­ate) for the Col­lege of Human­i­ties' grad­u­at­ing class of 2008. An alumna of SF State's nationally-recognized speech & debate team, Lisa was named to the Amer­i­can Foren­sics Association's All-American Team and was awarded Plat­form Speaker of the Year two years in a row (2006–8) by the North­ern Cal­i­for­nia Foren­sics Association.

With her expe­ri­ence high­light­ing writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion, pub­lic speak­ing and men­tor­ing young adults, Lisa's goals are focused on improv­ing the well-roundedness of stu­dents every­where. Because, as she puts it, you can only be so much of a square.

Jacob Weiss

Jacob Weiss grad­u­ated from Occi­den­tal Col­lege in 2009 with an AB in Eco­nom­ics, and a minor in Span­ish Lit­er­ary Stud­ies. He brings to Bet­ter­grads sev­eral years of expe­ri­ence in the retail indus­try, where he learned to fine-tune his cus­tomer ser­vice skills at Nord­strom, and was recently named the Cus­tomer Ser­vice All-Star at its Topanga Plaza store.

Jacob befriended Bet­ter­grads’ founder Kevin Adler when he was selected to be a Direc­tor of Occi­den­tal College’s Charles R. Blyth Fund. Dur­ing their short time together, Jacob rec­og­nized that Kevin was a capa­ble leader, with pas­sions for social entre­pre­neur­ship, pol­i­tics, and bas­ket­ball. When Jacob saw that Kevin was look­ing for vol­un­teers for a per­sonal project via a LinkedIn update, he imme­di­ately jumped at the oppor­tu­nity to help Kevin in any way that he could.

Dur­ing his years at Occi­den­tal, Jacob was a three-year mem­ber of its Ulti­mate Fris­bee team "Detox", a mem­ber of the Phi Kappa Psi Fra­ter­nity, and an avid chal­lah baker.