Stella M. Flores, assistant professor of public policy and higher education at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College for education and human development, has been named a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow.
The award will allow her to pursue her research interests during 2010-11. She was one of 20 fellows selected nationally from a competitive pool of 160 scholars in education. The fellowships, administered by the NEA, are designed to enhance the future of education research by developing new talent. Flores’ funded project will
examine the college access and completion trajectories of English language learner youth using a confidential and longitudinal dataset in Texas.
Flores, who has a secondary appointment as assistant professor of sociology, holds a doctorate of education in administration, planning and social policy with a concentration in higher education from Harvard University, a master’s of education from Harvard, a master’s of public affairs from the University of Texas at Austin, and a B.A. from Rice University.
Prior to joining the Vanderbilt faculty, she served as program evaluator for the U.S. General Accountability Office and as a program specialist for the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. She is a native of Edinburg, Texas.
Flores employs large-scale databases and quantitative methods in her scholarly work to investigate the impact of state and federal policies on college access and completion for low-income and underrepresented populations. Also of scholarly interest are the role of alternative admissions plans and financial aid programs in college admissions, demographic changes in higher education, and Latino students and community colleges.
She is a co-editor of
Legacies of Brown: Multiracial Equity in American Education (Harvard Educational Review, 2004), and Latino Educational Opportunity (Jossey-Bass, 2006) as part of the New Directions for Community Colleges series. Her recent work includes an examination of the effect of in-state resident tuition policies on college enrollment and persistence of undocumented students across the United States.
Flores also has evaluated institutional adoption of no-loan programs at private and public colleges and universities. She has analyzed institutional response to federal and state changes in race-conscious admissions policies and programs and examined college access and related success of underrepresented students in Texas colleges and universities.
At Peabody, she teaches courses related to college access and completion and general public policy.
The fellowships are administered by the National Academy of Education, an honorary education society and funded by a grant to the Academy from the Spencer Foundation. Now in its 24th year, the fellowship program has more than 600 alumni in the education research field.
Peabody College recently was named the No. 1 graduate school of education in the nation by U.S. News and World Report for the second consecutive year. For more information about the college, visit http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu.
Media Contact: Jennifer Johnston (615) 322-NEWS
Jennifer.johnston@vanderbilt.edu