Nancy López, Ph.D.

Dr. Nancy López is a professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico. Dr. López co-founded and still directs the Institute for the Study of “Race” and Social Justice and she is the founding coordinator of the New Mexico Statewide Race, Gender, Class Data Policy Consortium (Visit race.unm.edu). Dr. López currently serves as Associate Vice President for the Division of Equity and Inclusion. Her scholarship and teaching are guided by the insights of intersectionality–the simultaneity of tribal status/settler colonialism race/structural racism, gender/heteropatriarchy, class/capitalism, ethnicity/nativism, sexuality/heterosexism as systems of oppression/resistance across a variety of social outcomes (education, health, employment, wealth and housing) and the importance of developing contextualized solutions that advance justice. Her books include: Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education (2003), and Mapping “Race”: Critical Approaches to Health Disparities Research (2013). She co-edited a special issue of the Race, Ethnicity and Education Journal on Quantitative Methods and Critical Race Theory. She is                                                                                                                                also known for developing the concept of “street race.”

Dr. López has been recognized for her contributions to engaged scholarship through the American Sociological Association William Foote Whyte Distinguished Career Award for Sociological Practice and Public Sociology. Dr. López’s current research includes a mixed-method study in three research-practice partnerships that examines the role of ethnic studies curriculum and culturally relevant pedagogy in reducing complex intersectional inequalities in high school. She has served on over 70 Ph.D./MA committees and she has given over 130 seminars at national conferences, invited lectures, and community gatherings.