People

Principal Investigators

Daniel G. Solorzano, Ph.D., is co-principal investigator of PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success. He is director of UC/ACCORD All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity and a professor of social sciences and comparative education in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He also has joint appointment as professor in the Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies and an affiliated professor in the Department of Women’s Studies. His teaching and research interests include critical race and gender studies on the educational access, persistence and graduation of underrepresented minority undergraduate and graduate students in the United States.

Amanda Datnow, Ph.D., is co-principal investigator of the PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success project. She is a professor and director of Education Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her research focuses on educational reform, with particular interest in reforms that increase opportunities for all students and improve the professional lives of educators. She enjoys working with students and teaches courses to undergraduates and graduate students at UCSD.

Directors of Research

Tara Watford, Ph.D., is the director of research for the PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success project at UCLA. Her research pursues more robust notions of equity in higher education. Watford is particularly interested in investigating the disparities in educational opportunities by race, class and gender and the politics of institutional reform. Prior to joining the project, Watford was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California. Watford received her Ph.D. in education with a specialization in race and ethnic studies from UCLA.

Vicki Park, Ph.D., is the director of research for the PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success project at University of California, San Diego. She earned her doctorate in urban education policy with an emphasis on leadership and administration from the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. Her research focuses on urban school reform, policy implementation, and institutional change.

Faculty

Cynthia Feliciano, Ph.D., is associate professor of sociology and Chicano/Latino studies at the University of California, Irvine. Her research on race and ethnicity, immigration, and educational inequality has appeared in journals such as Sociology of Education, Demography, and Social Forces. She is the author of Unequal Origins: Immigrant Selection and the Education of the Second Generation (2006). Feliciano earned her Ph.D. in sociology from UCLA and has been a fellow of the Ford Foundation and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation.

Makeba Jones, Ph.D., is an associate project research scientist at the Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment and Teaching Excellence (CREATE) at UCSD. She is one of the principal investigators for the San Diego case study portion of the PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success project. She is currently examining the lives and pathways of 100 low-income youth in San Diego. She is a qualitative researcher with a background in urban school reform and policy, teacher professional development, student engagement and student voice.

Hugh "Bud" Mehan, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of sociology at UCSD. He has conducted research on the construction of educational inequalities and contributed to the construction of more equitable educational environments for low-income students of color.

Leticia Oseguera is currently working as a research associate at Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Higher Education. She is on leave from the University of California, Irvine where she is an assistant professor in the Department of Education. Her work focuses on access to and retention in postsecondary education for low-income students and other marginalized populations.

John Rogers, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and the director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA). He is also faculty co-director of UCLA’s Principal Leadership Institute. Rogers is an expert on learning conditions in California public schools and communities and for several years has authored the California Educational Opportunity Report, widely used by state lawmakers, civic and community organizations. Rogers also studies the role of public engagement in equity-focused school reform and civic renewal. He is the co-author of Learning Power: Organizing for Education and Justice (2006) and the co-editor of the forthcoming Public Engagement for Public Education: Revitalizing Democracy and Equalizing Schools (September 2010).

Mike Rose, Ph.D., is a professor in the Social Research Methodology division at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His research interests include literacy and the cognitive processes involved in writing, remediation in writing, teaching and learning, career and technical education and the cognitive dimension of work. He is the author of a number of books and articles on these topics including: Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared; Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education in America; The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker; An Open Language: Selected Writing on Literacy, Learning and Opportunity; and Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us.

Veronica Terriquez, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the sociology department at the University of Southern California. She heads the California Young Adult Survey, which aims to document patterns of participation in postsecondary education, employment and civic engagement of 18 to 26 year olds. Terriquez’s research focuses on educational inequality, immigrant integration and organized labor. Her work is linked to education justice and immigrant rights organizing efforts in Los Angeles. Terriquez received her Ph.D. in sociology from UCLA.

Susan Yonezawa, Ph.D., is an associate project research scientist at UCSD’s CREATE. She is the co-principal investigator of the San Diego Case Study. Her overall research focuses on equity and school reform with a special emphasis on low-income and minority students' perspectives and voice in school change efforts. She has published widely in various journals including the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Leadership, Theory into Practice, and the Journal of Educational Change.

Staff

LLuliana Alonso is a graduate student researcher at UC/ACCORD.  She is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies at UCLA in the division of social science and comparative education with an emphasis on race and ethnic studies. She enjoys photography, traveling and karaoke nights.

Mariam Ashtiani is a graduate student researcher at the University of California, Irvine. She conducts quantitative research for the PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success project and looks at the multiple postsecondary educational pathways of youth in poverty. Ashtiani is a doctoral student in sociology at UCI, and her interests lie at the intersections of race and ethnicity, education, criminal justice and immigration.

Christine Cerven is a postdoctoral scholar at the UC San Diego. She works on the Riverside case study, focusing on low-income single mothers and their pathways to and within postsecondary education. She obtained her Ph.D. in sociology specializing in social psychology and gender studies. Her research interests focus on identity processes as they relate to psychological wellbeing and identity development within women.

Rhoda Freelon is a graduate student researcher for the PATHWAYS to Success Indicators Project. She assists with the development of an indicator system that will use data to monitor the critical conditions for low-income youth’s successful transition to postsecondary education, employment, and civic and community engagement. Freelon is a doctoral student in urban schooling at UCLA.  Her research interests include using quantitative research methods to investigate the intersection of race and class in educational access and equity as well as exploring the role of parent and community engagement in school reform efforts in urban communities.

Nickie Johnson-Ahorlu is a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA responsible for conducting cross-case analysis of data for the three case studies. She has served as a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute and a research analyst at Loyola Marymount University's Office of Intercultural Affairs. She earned a doctorate in education from UCLA, and her work focuses on African-American academic achievement and experiences in higher education, Critical Race Theory and the intersection between racism and self-perception.

Sheila Keegan is an assistant project coordinator for the PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success project at the University of California, San Diego. She performs a variety of administrative and clerical duties and manages logistics for meetings and travel. Keegan is a UC San Diego graduate.

Maria C. Malagon is a research postdoctoral scholar for PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success. Her research focuses on the educational trajectories of continuation high school Chicano students.

Jennifer Nations is a graduate student researcher with the Riverside case study team. Nations assists in developing theoretical conceptualization of the project, reviewing relevant literatures, developing interview protocols, making contacts with the subject population, and conducting interviews. She is a doctoral student in sociology at UC San Diego.

Kelly Nielsen is a graduate student researcher with PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success. His research focuses on the educational pathways of low-income mothers and the supportive relationships they form with individuals who help them attain postsecondary credentials. He is a doctoral student in sociology at UC San Diego and is interested in critical ethnography and the ways that culture, class, race, and gender intersect to variously reproduce and transform unequal social structures.

Caitlin Patler is a graduate student researcher on the California Young Adult Survey. Her primary responsibilities are to develop the survey's work/employment and demographics sections and conduct follow-up interviews with a sub-sample of immigrant youth. Patler is a doctoral student in sociology at UCLA. She has worked on several previous surveys of labor law violations in low-wage labor markets in Los Angeles. Drawing upon data from the CYAS, her dissertation will focus on the impacts of immigration status on the integration of undocumented young adults.

William Estuardo Rosales is a graduate student researcher with PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success, focusing on the development of the California Young Adult Survey. He is interested in measuring and examining the civic engagement outcomes of low-income youth. Rosales is a graduate student in sociology at UCLA.

Jeff Sacha is a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Southern California. He is a member of the California Young Adult Survey team that will be interviewing 18 to 26 year olds in California about their access to higher education. His interests include the role that access to mentorship and extracurricular activity can play in facilitating educational outcomes. Sacha is an avid amateur boxer and helps run a youth boxing program in the Pico-Union neighborhood.

Yen Ling Shek is a graduate student researcher for PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success. Her current work is on the Los Angeles case study, which focuses on low-income students of color at community colleges. Yen Ling is a UCLA doctoral student in higher education and organizational change.

Veronica Velez is a postdoctoral scholar at UC/ACCORD working with the Los Angeles Case Study Team. Her research examines how race and immigration mediate the experiences of Latina/o families, especially parents. She has found a love for mapmaking and has been developing her skill in GIS for educational research. Velez has worked as a community organizer in Latino immigrant communities for more than 10 years.