Assistant Commissioner, RI Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner
Tammy Vargas Warner, Ph.D.
Assistant Commissioner for Postsecondary Academic and Student Affairs
Rhode Island Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner
State of Rhode Island
Dr. Warner is the assistant commissioner for postsecondary academic and student affairs for the state of Rhode Island. In this role, she oversees all postsecondary academic and student initiatives for the Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner and the Rhode Island Council on Postsecondary Education. Her professional career began at the age of twenty as a single parent working in the private sector to support her family and complete her bachelor’s degree. A strong work ethic, technological savvy, and business acumen facilitated her quick rise into an executive leadership position in the textile industry. Almost two decades after a career transition into higher education, she has served in almost every facet of postsecondary education including admissions, academic advising, grants and scholarship management, research, institutional academic leadership, staff and faculty development, state higher education policy, governance, and coordination, fiscal oversight and stewardship, and change leadership. Dr. Warner’s professional interests focus on ways to improve pathways to degree completion for all college students and the ways in which systemic leadership plays a role on organizational capacity for data-informed, equity-driven student success. As a critical quantitative scholar, her research interests include the role of racialized classroom environments, faculty interactions, and systemic inequities on success and outcomes measures for students of color.
Dr. Warner received her Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Massachusetts Boston, and a B.S. and M.S. in Human Development from the University of Rhode Island. She is actively involved in the local community, serving as an executive board member for Rhode Island Latino Dollars for Scholars, Inspiring Minds, and as a founding member of the newly formed Black Pilots Association of Rhode Island. She lives in Cranston with her husband (the other Dr. Warner) and three sons.