About Leslie

Leslie Patricia Luqueño is a Ph.D candidate at Stanford's Graduate School of Education, specializing in the Sociology of Education. She holds a B.A. with honors in Anthropology and Educational Studies from Haverford College and a M.A. in Sociology from Stanford University.

Her research interests lie at the intersection of immigration, higher education, and family studies, with a focus on how familial histories of immigration shape educational futures amongst immigrant descendants. Her dissertation titled, College is a Familia(r) Occassion: How Latinx Immigrant Families Navigate the Transition toward Higher Education, explores how Latinx families leverage their unique knowledge and skill sets to help students prepare, apply, and pursue college.

Utilizing ethnographic and qualitative methods through a research-practice partnership, Leslie is dedicated to investigating how research and practice can expand their scope of what counts as valuable "familial involvement" and think about how to support both students and their loved ones make the leap toward higher education.

In addition to her research, she is also a mentor for the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Fellowship, a Representative and Social Chair on the Graduate Student Council, and Student Representative on the Latina/o/x Studies Association. Her research is supported by the CCSRE Dissertation Fellowship, the Diversity Academia, Recruiting Excelence (DARE) Fellowship and Leslie is also a previous recipient of the Ford Foundation Predoctoral and Dissertation Fellowships and the Research, Action, and Impact through Strategic Engagement (RAISE) Fellowship.

Born and raised in Bell Gardens, California, Leslie is a proud first-generation-to-college, Latina scholar from a working-class background and is excited to bring her passion for advocacy and equity to a faculty position in the near future.