Chris Sienza, MS

Director of First and Second Year Advising, Student Academic Services

Chris Sienza, MS (he/him) serves as the Director of First and Second Year Advising where he provides strategic leadership and oversees daily operations for the first- and second-year academic advising team.  

Prior to joining Loyola, Chris served as the Program Manager for the University of Colorado Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Colorado. This role provided advising as well as other essential academic services to students who are pursuing a Medical Doctorate (MD) as well as a Basic Sciences PhD through a rigorous and highly integrated dual-degree program. Chris has developed and delivered training with multiple institutions on the core concepts of relational advising, focusing on the establishment of a personalized advising relationship as the foundation for providing high-quality advising services for students.  

Chris has more than 15 years of experience in higher education and academic advising, with over 12 of those years serving in roles within academic leadership as a manager or director. He has served in many other support roles within academic services including as an admissions officer, a federal grant manager, an ADA Coordinator, chair of the student conduct committee, and chair of curriculum steering committees. He presently serves on the alumni board of directors for his undergraduate institution, Augustana College.  

Chris is an advocate for accessibility for all within higher education and has participated in numerous pipeline programs throughout his career to support increasing access for first-generation and underserved students. This includes serving on the University of Colorado BA/BS to MD Pipeline Program admissions committee as well as providing presentations and support services to scholars participating in the CU PIKE-Prep program, a pipeline program which provides post-baccalaureate research and mentorship opportunities for underserved students who aspire to attend PhD or MD/PhD programs. He has attended numerous national conferences as a program representative which support underserved student populations in higher education including the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists (ABRCMS) and the annual NDiSTEM conference hosted by the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science (SACNAS).  

Chris holds a Master of Science degree in Communications from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor of Arts in English and Political Science from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.