Appointment of Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco as Dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

UCLA Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

To:  Administrative Officers, Deans, Department Chairs, Directors, GSE&IS Faculty, and Vice Chancellors

Dear Colleagues:

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco as Dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSE&IS), effective September 1, 2012.

Professor Suárez-Orozco is the Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education at New York University, where he also holds the title of University Professor. At Harvard University, he served as Professor of Human Development and Psychology (1995-2001) and as the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education and Culture (2001-2004). In 1997, with Carola Suárez-Orozco, he co-founded the Harvard Immigration Projects and co-directed the largest funded study in the history of the National Science Foundation’s Cultural Anthropology division. The award-winning book reporting the results of this landmark study, Learning A New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society, was published by Harvard University Press in 2008. At the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Marcelo was the Richard B. Fisher Member (2009-2010), 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 Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, visiting professor of anthropology at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), and fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, where he wrote with Carola Suárez-Orozco the award-winning Transformations: Migration, Family Life and Achievement Motivation among Latino Adolescents (Stanford University Press, 1995).

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 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; and scholarly papers in a range of disciplines and languages in international journals including Harvard Educational Review, Revue Française de Pédagogie (Paris), Harvard Business Review, Cultuur en Migratie (Leuven), Harvard International Review, Temas: Cultura, Ideologia y Sociedad (Havana), Harvard Policy Review, Ethos, International Migration (Geneva), Anthropology and Education Quarterly, The Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Annual Reviews of Anthropology, and others. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, W. T. Grant, Spencer, Ford and Carnegie.

Professor Suárez-Orozco was educated in public schools in Argentina and at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his A.B. (psychology), M.A. (anthropology) and Ph.D. (anthropology). In 2004 he 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; and in 2012 he was appointed Special Advisor to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the City of the Hague on Education, Peace, and Justice. Professor Suárez-Orozco’s research is regularly featured in the global media, including the New York Times, 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 overseas outlets.

I want to thank the search/advisory committee for assembling an outstanding pool of candidates and for its role in recruiting Marcelo. The committee was chaired by David O. Sears, distinguished professor of psychology and political science; other members were Abeer Alwan, professor of electrical engineering and member of the UCLA Lab School board of advisors; Sibyll Carnochan Catalan, member of the UCLA Lab School board of advisors; Mitchell J. Chang, professor of education, higher education and organizational change division; Anne J. Gilliland, professor of information studies and moving image archive studies; Tyrone Howard, professor of education, urban schooling division; Gregory Leazer, associate professor and chair, information studies; Alicia Miñana de Lovelace, member of the GSE&IS board of visitors; Kevin S. Reed, vice chancellor for legal affairs and member of the UCLA Community School board of advisors; Daniel G. Solórzano, professor of education, social science and comparative education division and member of the UCLA Community School board of advisors.

I also want to recognize and thank Aimée Dorr for her distinguished service as dean since September 1999.

Chancellor Block and I are confident that GSE&IS will reach new heights under Marcelo’s leadership. Please join me in congratulating him and welcoming him to UCLA.

Sincerely,

Scott L. Waugh
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost