Carola Suárez-Orozco, Ph.D. Professor

Moore Hall 1041B
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521
(310) 206-0647
csorozco@ucla.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Carola Suárez-Orozco is a professor of Human Development and Psychology at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences. Her body of research uses mixed-methodological strategies to elucidate the child, adolescent, and young adult experience of immigration. Her work focuses on the question, how is a person’s development shaped by immigration and how are they changed by the process? Dr. Suárez-Orozco has considered a wide variety of processes including identity formation, family separations, gendered patterns, civic engagement, and most recently the unauthorized experience. A focus on school settings has been an essential and enduring theme in her basic research agenda as schools are a first contact point between the immigrant child, their family and the new society. Further, education is a critical predictor of current as well as future wellbeing and socio-economic mobility for the most rapidly growing sector of the U.S. youth population.

UCLA Faculty Profile

Positions

  • Professor of Education
  • Co-Director, Institute for Immigration, Globalization & Education
  • Co-Founder, Re-Imagining Migration

Education

  • Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, California School of Professional Psychology, San Diego
  • M.A., Clinical Psychology, John F. Kennedy University
  • A.B., Development Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Awards, Honors, Fellowships

  • Elected to the National Academy of Education (2016)
  • Society for Research on Adolescence Social Policy Best Edited Book Award (2016) [for Transitions: The Development of Children of Immigrants]
  • Chair, American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Immigration (2010 to 2012)
  • Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship (2009/10) [Princeton, NJ]
  • Virginia & Warren Stone Award — Harvard University Press’ Outstanding Book on Education and Society (2007) [for Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society
  • American Psychological Association Presidential Citation (2006) [for research and contribution to understanding of immigrant youth and families]
  • Society for Research on Adolescence Social Policy Best Book Award (1996) [for Transformations: Immigration, Family Life & Achievement Motivation Among Latino Adolescents]

Select Publications

  • Yoshikawa, H., Suárez-Orozco, C. & Gonzalez, R., G. (2016). Unauthorized Status and Youth Development in the United States: Consensus Statement for the Society on Research on Adolescence.  Journal of Research on Adolescence. doi:10.1111/jora.12272
  • Suárez-Orozco, C., Katsiaficas,  D., Birchall, O., Alcantar, A. M., Hernandez, E.,  Garcia, Y., Michikyan, M., Cerda, J., & Teranishi, R. (2015). Undocumented undergraduates on college campuses: Understanding their challenges, assets, and what it takes to make an UndocuFriendly campus. Harvard Education Review, 85(3),427-463.
  • Suárez-Orozco, C., Casanova, S., Martin, M., Katsiaficas, D., Cuellar, V., Dias, S., & Smith, N. (2015). Toxic rain in the classroom: Classroom interpersonal microaggressions. Educational Researcher, 44(3),151-160.
  • Suárez-Orozco, C., Hernandez, M. G., & Casanova, S.   (2015).“It’s sort of my calling”: The civic participation and social responsibility immigrant origin emerging adults. Research in Human Development. 12(1), 84-99.
  • Suárez-Orozco, C., Bang H. J., & Kim, H. Y. (2010). “I felt like my heart was staying behind:” Psychological implications of immigrant family separations & reunifications. Journal of Adolescent Research, 21(2), 222-257.
  • Suárez-Orozco, C., Gaytán, F. X., Bang, H. J., O’Connor, E., Pakes, J., & Rhodes, J. (2010). Academic trajectories of newcomer immigrant youth. Developmental Psychology, 46(3) 602-618.