Ruth M. López

Ruth M. López, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies in the College of Education at the University of Houston. She earned a PhD in Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder) in 2015 and was a recipient of the Ofelia Miramontes Doctoral Fellowship. She was previously a Senior Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. In her research, she addresses the social and political contexts that students of color navigate across K-12 schools and higher education, particularly Latinx students and their families. As a qualitative methodologist using interdisciplinary perspectives, her research agenda spans three lines of inquiry: 1) the intersection of education and immigration policies, 2) college access for underserved communities, and 3) culturally responsive education for racialized students. Her theoretical approaches are guided by critical race theory, LatCrit, and Chicana feminist epistemology. Her work is informed by her lived experiences as the daughter of immigrants from El Salvador and Mexico, as a mother of two school-age children, and from being a first-generation college graduate.

Email Ruth López at: rmlopez3@central.uh.edu