Carola Suárez-Orozco

Carola Suárez-Orozco is a cultural developmental psychologist, academic, and author known for her research on the psychology of immigration, adolescent development, and educational equity. She is a professor in residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the director of the immigration initiative at Harvard. She is also the co-founder of Re-Imagining Migration, a nonprofit organization. She was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 2024.

She has held faculty positions at New York University, UCLA, and Harvard University.

Biography Suárez-Orozco was born in 1958.

She received her Bachelor's degree in Development Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978, and a Master's degree in Clinical Psychology from John F. Kennedy University in 1980. She went on to enroll at the California School of Professional Psychology, in 1988. She completed her Clinical Internship in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, earning her Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology in 1993. She also served as Managing Director of the Immigration Project and Co-Principal Investigator of the Longitudinal Immigrant Student Adaptation Study.

In 2004, She became an associate professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education in the Department of Applied Psychology and Teaching & Learning. She was promoted to full professor in 2006. She was appointed professor in residence at Harvard University Graduate School of Education in 2022 and directs the Immigration Initiative at Harvard. Since July 2022, she has been serving as professor in residence at Harvard University Graduate School of Education. In 2022, she was also appointed as the Director of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard.

She has authored or co-authored books, including Transformations: Immigration, Family Life, and Achievement Motivation Among Latino Adolescents, Children of Immigration, Learning a New Land, Immigrant-Origin Students in Community College, and Education: A Global Compact for a Time of Crisis.

Research Suárez-Orozco's focuses her research on child, adolescent, and young adult experiences of immigration, while covering a broad range of topics including academic engagement and achievement, identity formation, family separations, civic engagement, and the unauthorized experience.

Her early seminal study includes the Longitudinal Student Adaptation Study (LISA) funded by the NSF, the Spencer, and William T. Grant Foundations. This longitudinal study which she ran out of the Harvard Immigration Project followed 400 immigrant newcomer young adolescents originating from China, Central America, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico for 5 years. The study led to multiple journal articles as well as the Harvard University Press book-- Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society.

She led a study of immigrant origin young adults attending community colleges. Funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, the Research on Immigrants in Community College (RICC) study considered the experience of 646 immigrant community college students attending 3 community colleges in New York.

In addition, in 2016, she was awarded a Lyle Spencer Foundation Grant to research the role of teacher enactments of bias in K-12 classrooms. She has also co-led a study, with Ford Foundation surveying over 900 undocumented college undergraduates across the country. Most recently she has led the Ford Foundation work entitled—"Bridging the Compassion Gap" Addressing Social Inclusion for Immigrant Origin Children & Youth.

Personal life She has been married to Argentine born anthropologist and academic Marcelo Suárez-Orozco since 1977 with whom she has written and collaborated with.

Awards and honors

2024 – Guggenheim Fellow 1996 – Best Book Award, Society for Research on Adolescence Social Policy 2002 – Roberta Grodberg Simmons Prize Lecture, Society for Research on Adolescence 2006 – Inducted into the New York Academy of Sciences 2006 – Presidential Citation, American Psychological Association 2007 – Virginia & Warren Stone Award, Harvard University Press’ Outstanding Book on Education and Society 2009 – Fellowship, Institute for Advanced Study 2010 to 2012 – Chair, American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Immigration 2016 – Award for Best Edited Book, Society for Research on Adolescence Social Policy 2018 – Award for Best Article, Society for Research on Adolescence Social Policy 2019 – Undergraduate Mentoring Award, UCLA 2020 – Arthur W. Staats Prize Lecture for Unifying Psychology, American Psychological Association APA Division