Dr. Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, the Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education at New York University, has been appointed dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, effective September 1.
Professor Suárez-Orozco’s research focuses on conceptual and empirical problems in the areas of cultural psychology and psychological anthropology with a focus on the study of mass migration, globalization, and education. He most recently served as co-director of Immigration Studies at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development with his wife, Carola Suárez-Orozco.
In his announcement on Monday, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh stated, “Chancellor Block and I are confident that GSE&IS will reach new heights under Marcelo’s leadership.”
Suárez-Orozco, who earned his A.B. in psychology, M.A. in anthropology, and Ph.D. in anthropology at UC Berkeley, is enthusiastic about joining UCLA at a pivotal time.
“I am deeply honored and excited to be coming back to California at this moment in the University’s evolving history,” he states. “I cannot think of a more attractive place than UCLA’s GSE&IS to pursue the most fundamental questions about education and information for a miniaturized, interconnected, and fragile world.”
At Harvard University, Suárez-Orozco served as professor of human development and psychology from 1995 to 2001 and as the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education and Culture from 2001 to 2004. With Carola Suárez-Orozco, he co-founded the Harvard Immigration Projects in 1997 and co-directed the largest study ever funded in the history of the National Science Foundation’s Cultural Anthropology Division – a study of Asian, Afro-Caribbean, and Latina/o immigrant youth in American society. The award-winning book reporting the results of this landmark study, “Learning A New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society,” (with Carola Suárez-Orozco and Irina Todorova) was published by Harvard University Press in 2008.
At the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Suárez-Orozco was the 2009- 2010 Richard B. Fisher Membership Fellow, working on education and globalization and on immigration. He has been visiting professor of psychology at the University of Barcelona; visiting professor of social sciences at the École des Hautes Études in Paris; and visiting professor of anthropology at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. As a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, he wrote the awardwinning “Transformations: Migration, Family Life and Achievement Motivation among Latino Adolescents” (Stanford University Press, 1995) with Carola Suárez-Orozco.
Suárez-Orozco is the author of numerous scholarly essays, award-winning books, and edited volumes published by Harvard University Press, Stanford University Press, the University of California Press, Cambridge University Press, and New York University Press. He has written scholarly papers in a range of disciplines and languages for international journals including the Harvard Educational Review, Revue Française de Pédagogie,Harvard Business Review, Cultuur en Migratie, Harvard International Review, Temas: Cultura, Ideologia y Sociedad, Harvard Policy Review, Ethos, International Migration, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Annual Reviews of Anthropology. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, W. T. Grant, Spencer, the Ford Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
In 2004 Suárez-Orozco was elected to the National Academy of Education. In 2006 he was awarded The Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, Mexico’s highest honor to a foreign national. This year, he was appointed as a special advisor for education, peace, and justice to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Professor Suárez-Orozco’s research is regularly featured in the media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post,Time, Newsweek, U.S News and World Report, the Huffington Post, the Economist, NPR, CNN, and MSNBC, as well as in global outlets.
Suárez-Orozco’s most recent books are “Writing Immigration” (with Vivian Louie and Roberto Suro, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011) and “Educating the Whole Child for the Whole World” (with Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, ed. New York: NYU Press, 2012). He is currently writing about his years of interdisciplinary collaboration and teaching with Howard Gardner, Harvard psychologist and author of “Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences.”
“Los Angeles is the great global city at the crossroads of the momentous economic and social transformations remaking our world,” notes Suárez-Orozco, a native of Argentina. “The opportunity to work with the world-renowned GSE&IS faculty on the defining education and information issues of the day – how best to prepare all our children and youth to thrive in the globally interlinked economies and societies of the 21st Century, only comes once in a lifetime.”
In making his announcement, Waugh thanked Dr. Aimée Dorr for her distinguished service as dean of GSE&IS since September 1999. He also expressed his appreciation for the service of the search/advisory committee chaired by David Sears, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Political Science.
Other members of the search committee included Abeer Alwan, professor of electrical engineering and member, UCLA Lab School Board of Advisors; Sibyll Carnochan Catalan, member, UCLA Lab School Board of Advisors; Mitchell J. Chang, professor of education; Anne J. Gilliland, professor of information studies; Tyrone Howard, professor of education and director of Center X and of the Black Male Institute; Gregory Leazer, associate professor and chair of the Department of Information Studies; Alicia Miñana de Lovelace, member, GSE&IS Board of Visitors; Kevin S. Reed, vice chancellor for legal affairs and member, School Governing Council of UCLA Community School; and Daniel G. Solórzano, professor of education, director, UC/ACCORD, and member, School Governing Council of UCLA Community School.
This spring, Suárez-Orozco was featured in a New York Times article on recent information from the U.S. Census Bureau that non-white births now make up the majority in the United States.
“Today’s data on new births tell the story of our shared fate as a nation,” states Suárez-Orozco. “Los Angeles embodies what America will look like tomorrow: youthful, diverse, and vibrant. The GSE&IS will continue to be a beacon helping guide us through the complex currents of educating our new Americans to thrive in the global economy and society of the information age.”
For more media commentary from Dr. Suárez-Orozco, click here.