Mara López, Ed.D.

AVP of Marketing

Council Term: 2023-2026

Arizona State University

Senior Research Program Manager and part-time Faculty Associate

Dr. Mara López is a full-time Senior Research Program Manager and part-time Faculty Associate at Arizona State University (ASU). In her work at ASU, a newly designated HSI, she works to develop culturally responsive practices and increase the intentionality with which institutions work with Latinx students in STEM. She has taught First-Year Success courses at ASU since 2019. She recently graduated with her Doctorate in Education from ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College with an emphasis in Leadership and Innovation. Her research is centered on curriculum redesign, career decision-making self-efficacy, equity in education, social justice in education, and culturally responsive pedagogy. Through her research she has developed a Curriculum Interrogation Checklist through a Culturally Responsive Lens and a Culturally Responsive Recruitment and Retention Framework. She has presented at several conferences, spoken on several podcasts and written several papers all related to these research topics. She has worked in research for over 14 years on NIH, NSF, DoD, and DoE grants. She earned her BA in Psychology from San Diego State University and an MA in Organizational Leadership from Point Loma Nazarene University. She hopes to continue to affect change within institutions of higher education, provide mentorship for students who have been historically marginalized in academia and use research to be an agent of change.