Roquel Crutcher was a policy entrepreneur at Next100 and is chief of staff at PowerToFly. Immediately after leaving Next100, she was director of operations and marketing at WeSolar Inc., a community solar and energy efficiency company in Baltimore. She is an advocate and activist for social justice and educational equity. At Next100, Roquel focuses on increasing educational opportunities and postsecondary outcomes for young people in marginalized communities, as well as racial equity advocacy and policy change. She is now working on a project to elevate the voices of alumni of charter schools in related policy debates. Roquel is collecting data through surveys and interviews from which she’ll produce an analysis and report, but she will also seek to support charter alumni in engaging in the policymaking process by participating in events and writing original pieces. She recently authored a piece on how universities are failing their most vulnerable students, and is co-authoring a report about NYC early childhood programming and community-based organizations and charter schools.

As a student, Roquel was founder and president of American University’s chapter of the NAACP and later served as the D.C. branch chair of the Young Adults Committee. Roquel has worked at several educational nonprofits, including Teach for America and the KIPP Foundation. Roquel was selected for New Profit’s Millennial Impact Fellowship, NAACP’s Next Generation Fellowship, and a 2018 Aspen Ideas Fellowship. As an alumna of KIPP Memphis, Roquel was selected as an inaugural KIPP Accelerator Fellow. 

Roquel graduated from American University in 2016 with a BA in communications, legal studies, economics, and government, as well as a certificate in politics, policy, and law. In her free time, Roquel enjoys dancing and discussing why Beyoncé is the best entertainer of all time.