Marissa Bastian
Assistant Director of Business Development
Marissa.Bastian@academicsearch.org
Ms. Marissa Bastian brings more than fifteen years of experience working at institutions of higher education and higher education-serving organizations. For most of her career, Ms. Bastian directed campus-based collegiate peer tutoring programs. She also supported institutional assessment efforts, working on projects related to student learning outcomes, program review, and regional accreditation. Ms. Bastian paired this work with her service on the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA) national board, collaborating with colleagues across the country to advance the work of peer tutoring, peer mentoring, and developmental education practitioners and faculty.
Following her on-campus roles, Ms. Bastian served as a Partner Success Manager at Knack, an EdTech company, where she worked with colleges and universities to bring scalable peer tutoring programs to their campuses. In this role, Ms. Bastian worked with Dr. George Kuh and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) team to develop questions for a beta module about peer tutoring for the 2022 NSSE survey. Dr. Kuh and Ms. Bastian presented on this project at the 54th Annual CRLA Conference, outlining the work necessary for peer tutoring to qualify as an official High-Impact Practice per the AAC&U.
Before joining Academic Search, Ms. Bastian most recently served as the Program Manager for Data Analytics at FirstGen Forward, formerly NASPA’s Center for First-generation Student Success, where she managed data functions, projects, and institutional reports. She developed templates for external reports and presentations, as well as internal reporting tools, helping the team deliver consistent, compelling narratives grounded in data. In her role with Academic Search, Ms. Bastian leads proposal production and management. Her strong background in data, reporting, and relationship management enhances Academic Search’s ability to serve institutions and support the growth of the organization’s work.
Ms. Bastian earned her Master of Arts in English from Boston College and her Bachelor of Arts in English and History from Assumption University.
