Scholar of transition to college, campus racial climate, and equity for historically marginalized groups to lead the American Educational Research Association in 2027-2028.
UCLA Distinguished Professor of Education Sylvia Hurtado has been voted president-elect of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), for 2026-2027, joining the AERA Council. Her presidency begins at the conclusion of the association’s 2027 Annual Meeting.
“AERA can power the collective momentum to envision and (re)build more equitable educational and democratic systems,” says Professor Hurtado. “As we continue the fight for educational equity, quality research, and academic freedom, let’s create, engage, and elevate a new vision together. In the coming months, I hope to assemble an active team and support for this national work.”
Hurtado studies the transition to college, the campus racial climate, and STEM pathways and interventions. Her research centers equity for historically marginalized groups and institutional transformation and has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation, as well as distinguished organizations such as the Spencer Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Gates Foundation.
Engaged in AERA since graduate school, Professor Hurtado has been active in Division J–Postsecondary Education, Division G–Social Content of Education, the Latina/o/x Research Issues Special Interest Group, and the Mixed Methods Research Special Interest Group. Inducted as an AERA Fellow in 2011, Hurtado received the 2018 AERA Social Justice in Education Award; the 2015 Division J Exemplary Research Award; and delivered the 2021 AERA Distinguished Lecture, “The Inevitability of Racial Bias and Exclusion: Implications for Identity-Based Education and Practice.”
Professor Hurtado was a member-at-large on the AERA Executive Board and Council from 2019 to 2022 and served as Council liaison to the AERA Journal Publications Committee. She also served on the AERA Nominating Committee from 2015 to 2017, and has served as co-editor for AERA’s peer-review journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis since 2023.
Inducted into the National Academy of Education in 2019, Professor Hurtado serves on the organization’s board of directors. She is past president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (2005) and directed two postsecondary research centers: the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, and UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, where she served for over a decade.
The Association for Institutional Research awarded Professor Hurtado the 2022 Sidney Suslow Award for career contributions that inform higher education decision-making. Growing up in a segregated town as a first-generation Latina college student led to roles as a certified teacher and change agent in college admissions and student support programs—and to pursuing research as a tool for empowerment.
At UCLA, Professor Hurtado works with research teams to complete research papers and present on cases studies of STEM interventions, the organizational impact of culturally- aware mentor training for graduate program faculty in the biomedical sciences, and a Gates Foundation project of the uses of campus racial climate assessments that will be presented at 2026 AERA.