Office of the Chancellor
Wolde-Ab Isaac
Chancellor, Riverside Community College District
A distinguished scientist, academic administrator, and visionary chancellor whose work life embodies a foundational belief that education is the ultimate economic and social equalizer. With a career in education that has spanned nearly sixty years and several continents, Chancellor Isaac’s work has left an indelible mark on the region, state, and the nation’s higher education systems.
Born in Eritrea, East Africa, the first of seven children, Wolde-Ab was the first person in his family to attend college. He began his academic journey at Haile Selassie University in Ethiopia, where he majored in chemistry. He conducted post-doctoral research at Uppsala University in Sweden, followed by a move to the United States as a Fullbright Scholar at the University of Michigan, where he earned both his Master of Science and Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry.
His early professional career combined academia with private sector research. He served as an assistant professor at the University of Addis Abeba in Ethiopia and as an associate professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Ife in Nigeria. He also spent 12 years as a senior clinical research scientist for AstraZeneca, authoring a number of scientific papers which were published in professional medical journals.
In 1993, following Eritrea’s hard-won independence, he returned home to dedicate himself to public service. He served as secretary within the Eritrean government, managing human resources, strategic planning, and civil service reforms. In 1993, he was appointed president of the University of Asmara, leading Eritrea’s premier national institution, a role he held until 2006.
In 2006, he joined Moreno Valley College as dean of Health Science. With his global experience in medicine, he built regional training pipelines for dental hygiene, emergency medical assisting, and physician assistant programs.
Seeing his data-driven approach to student success, the District tapped him to serve as vice president of Academic Affairs at Riverside City College before eventually naming him the 11th president of the College in April 2015. Under his presidency, the campus institutionalized comprehensive student equity frameworks and championed high school outreach. The RCCD Board of Trustees then selected him as the District's fourth chancellor on January 1, 2018.
He went from being a first-generation college student in Africa to an international university president, and finally an American chancellor. Overall, Chancellor Isaac has driven an educational transformation within the Riverside Community College District and its communities for 22 years.
He forged innovative partnerships with local universities that included a shared student housing development with the University of California, Riverside. He also championed dual-admission agreements and guaranteed transfer pipelines directly into local universities like UC Riverside and California State Universities. For his immense impact on the region's socioeconomic landscape, the Inland Empire Economic Partnership named him Educator of the Year. He was also awarded the Art Pick Distinguished Alumni Award by the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce in June 2026.
Under Chancellor Isaac’s leadership, the District completed a $37 million solar project that spanned all three colleges and the Culinary Arts, Performing Arts Center, and District Office. In 2024, the District secured nearly a billion dollars in Measure CC funding to further modernize and expand RCCD campuses. His legacy leaves the District firmly positioned as a model of sustainability, innovation and academic equity for decades to come.