Dr. Sylvia Hurtado, a distinguished professor at the School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has been elected president-elect of the American Educational Research Association. For many diverse leaders in higher education, her deeper legacy is already firmly established.
Hurtado is widely regarded as one of the architects of modern campus racial climate research. Long before campus climate surveys became standard practice, her scholarship helped define what campus climate is, how it can be measured, and why it matters for student success. Through her leadership of UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, she helped translate abstract commitments to diversity into longitudinal data tools institutions now use to assess belonging, bias, and institutional accountability.
That work is closely tied to her stewardship of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP), home to the nation’s longest-running survey of college students. The CIRP Freshman Survey, in particular, has shaped enrollment strategy, first-year programming, and equity planning across hundreds of campuses.
Hurtado’s impact extends beyond measurement. She has co-led large-scale, federally funded STEM reform initiatives aimed at improving pathways for underrepresented students in biomedical and health sciences — pairing data with implementation strategies that redesign gateway courses, mentoring models, and faculty engagement.
A past president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education and a member of the National Academy of Education, Hurtado is among a small group of Latina scholars to ascend to the top leadership of multiple national research bodies. Her 2021 distinguished lecture on the structural inevitability of racial bias further cemented her reputation as a scholar unafraid to press institutions toward systemic — not symbolic — change.
