The Co-Director of the academic side of the PEER Project is Dr. Stephanie Cellini, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, The George Washington University.
The project was conceived by Professor Cellini, Student Defense President Aaron Ament and Jordan Matsudaira, in his former capacity as Associate Professor at Columbia University Teachers College. Matsudaira also served as the Chief Economist of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. The PEER Project is overseen by a steering committee that includes leading higher education economists and policy scholars.
These scholars and others will work closely with Student Defense's team of attorneys. Student Defense is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan organization, created in late 2017, by former Obama Administration officials. The organization works to advance students’ rights to educational opportunity and ensure that higher education provides a launching point for economic mobility.