Teaching interests: Chicana/o identity, theoretical frameworks, gender, feminism, and history; race, access , choice and equity in higher education; Chicana/o and Latina/o education; education pipeline issues.

Research interests: U.S. educational inequality with an emphasis on the Chicana/o and Latina/o population; higher education access and equity; college choice; college persistence and retention issues; Latino-serving institutions, financial aid policy and racial diversity in higher education.

Brief biography: Dr. Patricia A. Pérez is currently an Associate Professor in the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department at California State University, Fullerton.  Dr. Pérez received her doctorate from the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.   Her dissertation focused on the college choice process of Chicana and Chicano community college, transfer and university students in public postsecondary institutions in California.  Dr. Pérez is the recipient of the 2008 American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education/Educational Testing Service Kurt M. Landgraf Outstanding Dissertation Award.  Born and raised in Ventura County, California, Dr. Pérez is a first-generation college student from Santa Paula, the "citrus capital of the world," with family roots in Guanajuato and Sonora, México, as well as southern Arizona.  She received a B.A. in Chicana/o Studies and an Ed.M. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education with an emphasis in Administration, Planning and Social Policy.  Before joining UCLA, Dr. Pérez worked in student affairs at the Stanford University School of Medicine and for the Upward Bound program at the University of California, Santa Barbara.