Cinthya Salazar
Dr. Cinthya Salazar (ella/she) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education within UCLA’s School of Education & Information Studies and an affiliated faculty member in the Latino Policy & Politics Institute. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, she served as an Assistant Professor of Higher Education Administration at Texas A&M University. She received her Ph.D. in Higher Education, Student Affairs, and International Education Policy at the University of Maryland in 2020. Dr. Salazar’s research focuses on the mechanisms used by undocumented students to access, persist, and succeed in higher education. She uses participatory action research (PAR) and engages undocumented students as co-researchers to generate localized student success models that can promote their college retention. Her research and collaborative work with undocumented students have vast implications for higher education research, policy and practice at the local, state, and federal levels. At UCLA, Dr. Salazar teaches undergraduate and graduate courses centering topics such as immigrant student experiences and needs, student development and engagement, qualitative research methodologies, and higher education and student affairs administration. Dr. Salazar’s research and pedagogy are informed by her former experiences as a higher education administrator and student affairs educator working with minoritized students in college access and retention programs for over 8 years.
Dr. Salazar’s scholarship using PAR methodologies to examine undocumented student experiences with and for them, has been recognized nationally by numerous prestigious organizations. She has received several fellowships and awards including the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in 2019, the Bobby Wright Dissertation of the Year award conferred by the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) in 2020, the Early Career Scholar award presented by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) in 2023, the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2023, and the 2024 Early Career Award conferred by ASHE, among other distinctions. Dr. Salazar’s scholarship has been published in leading peer-reviewed outlets including the Journal of Higher Education, the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, the Journal of Qualitative Research, Community College Review, and the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, among others. Currently, Dr. Salazar is an active member on national research organizations like ASHE and the National Association for Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). At UCLA, she serves in the Chicano Studies Research Center faculty advisory board and supports the campus-wide efforts to become a Hispanic Serving Institution.
