Name: Luis A. López
Email: lal13@nyu.edu
Program: Sociology of Education
Research Interests: Sociology of Education; Student resistance and institutional transformation; decolonial and critical approaches to higher education; the relationship between education, democracy, and social change; and equity and access in universities.
Principal Advisor(s): Lisa Stulberg
Research description/bio: Luis is a first-year doctoral student in the Sociology of Education program at NYU Steinhardt. A scholar and educator, his research examines the intersections of power, education, and social movements across the Americas. Drawing on decolonial, critical race, and political education frameworks, his work analyzes how universities operate within networks of power, policy, and ideology, and how student movements arise from within these institutions to challenge and reimagine their purpose.
Luis’s scholarship is grounded in grassroots experiences across México, Puerto Rico, the broader Caribbean, and New York City, where he supports first-generation students through creative pedagogy, storytelling, and collective learning practices inspired by popular and autonomous education movements in Latin America. These experiences, both abroad and locally, inform his belief in learning as a collective and emancipatory process capable of fostering transformation within and beyond the university.
Alongside his doctoral studies, Luis continues to serve as an Academic Advisor and Instructor with NYU’s Opportunity Programs, where he supports first-generation students through creative pedagogy, storytelling, and dialogic learning practices rooted in the principles of popular education. He earned his B.A. in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Languages, Literature, and Linguistics from SUNY New Paltz and his M.A. in Regional Studies: Latin America and the Caribbean from Columbia University.