Mara López, EdD, MA

Dr. Mara Nohemi Lopez is the Inaugural Director of the HSI Research Center at the University of Arizona.  Prior to this role she has just recently accepted, she worked at the Associate Director of Research at the Center for Broadening Participation in STEM at Arizona State University (ASU) where she worked to develop culturally responsive practices and increase the intentionality with which institutions work with Latinx students in STEM. She graduated with her Doctorate in Education from ASU with an emphasis in Leadership and Innovation. Her research is centered on curriculum redesign, career decision-making self-efficacy, equity in education, social justice in education, and culturally responsive pedagogy. Through her research, she has developed a Curriculum Interrogation Checklist through a Culturally Responsive Lens and a Culturally Responsive Recruitment and Retention Framework. She has presented at several conferences, spoken on several podcasts, and written several papers all related to these research topics. She has worked in research for over 16 years on NIH, NSF, DoD, and DoE grants. She earned her BA in Psychology from San Diego State University and an MA in Organizational Leadership from Point Loma Nazarene University. She hopes to continue to affect change within institutions of higher education, provide mentorship for students who have been historically marginalized in academia, and use research to be an agent of change.