Julissa O. Muñiz

Dr. Julissa Muñiz is an assistant professor of education in the School of Education and Information Studies. Her research explores issues of race and racism, power and privilege, institutions and institutional logics, and abolition at the intersections of the U.S. public education, criminal legal and juvenile legal systems. More specifically, Muñiz examines teaching, learning, and identity development in juvenile court schools, with an interest in better understanding how young people live and learn while confined. Most recently, Muñiz was an assistant professor of psychology with affiliation in education and the Visualizing Abolition Program at UC Santa Cruz.

Dr. Muñiz earned her Ed.M. in prevention science and practice from the Harvard Graduate School of Education; her M.A. in human development and social policy from Northwestern University; and her B.A. in ethnic studies from UC Berkeley. Her training and research have been generously supported by the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, Spencer Foundation and the National Academy of Education, Social Science Research Council, and the University of Texas at Austin’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. Dr. Muñiz is a first-generation borderlands scholar from San Ysidro, California. In 2021, she founded the San Ysidro Rising Scholar Award, a scholarship and mentorship program that supports first-generation college students from her alma mater, San Ysidro High School. Before entering graduate school, Muñiz was a middle school academic counselor for TRIO Talent Search in Oakland, California, and a GED co-instructor for the Adult Peer Education Project at San Quentin State Prison.