Research Associate Mimi Muñoz assists with the quality improvement of WestEd's Power of Preschool (PoP) locations serving family child care and center-based early education programs in Santa Clara County, California.

Muñoz performs her work as part of WestEd's E3 Institute: Advancing Excellence in Early Education. She is a member of the PoP Quality Enhancement Support Team (QuEST) aimed at enhancing quality in PoP classrooms through environment rating scale assessments, ongoing technical assistance, and individualized professional development solutions for teachers in the PoP classrooms. As of 2008, nearly 800 children attended preschool through the PoP initiative.

A member of the E3 Institute since 2003, Muñoz worked on the Institute's Comprehensive Approaches to Raising Educational Standards (CARES) Program, which promotes and encourages educational attainment among early childhood professionals through a system of financial incentives and rewards. As of 2009, nearly 86 percent of the estimated early education workforce in Santa Clara County working in licensed programs has participated in CARES. Muñoz also contributed to bringing together an unprecedented collaboration of community agencies and college representatives into a monthly roundtable. She has collaborated extensively with these agencies and colleges to support early educators in Santa Clara County.

She has coordinated the CARES international education credential translation and evaluation project and the California Child Development Permit application services, which have benefited more than 1,000 early educators. Muñoz also coordinated the collaborative development and implementation of the online CARES Professional Development and Education Plan (PDEP). Colleges in Santa Clara County have used the PDEP to help more than 3,000 early education students create plans to support their educational goals.

Muñoz also has served as student cohort coordinator for the E3 Institute - San Jose State University (SJSU) Child and Adolescent Development BA Degree Program, which meets the specific educational needs of students in the early childhood educator workforce with the same high standards expected of all SJSU students. In 2010, 30 students are expected to graduate with a BA, which they earned through this program while working full time in early childhood settings.

Muñoz led the IBM-CARES Early Care and Education Quality Improvement Project, an unprecedented collaboration between the early education field and a large, for-profit corporation. IBM Corporation sought to develop an innovative strategy to improve the quality of care available to its employees' families. The training program offered inclusion of children with special needs, college credit for qualified early educators for completion of the WestEd Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC) training, environment rating scales training, and enrichment grants upon project completion. The project offered supports to 38 early educators from 35 early educator programs, who otherwise would not have had access to such training opportunities. More than 600 children and their families benefited from this training.

Prior to joining WestEd in 2003, Muñoz worked at the Santa Clara County Office of Education and the Mission College Child Development Department and Center. In 2002, Muñoz was recognized by the Mission College Academic Senate for her exemplary contributions to the college and was presented with a City of San Jose Smart Start Family Child Care Program Award for her service to the community.

She was Vice Chair and Chair of the City of San Jose Early Care and Education Commission, a member of the Santa Clara County Inclusion Collaborative, and, in 2006, was selected as a fellow for the Children's Defense Fund Emerging Leaders Project.

Muñoz received a BA in social science from the University of California, Irvine.