Dr. Villavicencio is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine. Her research is focused on K-12 educational policy and school practice that deepens or disrupts inequities for minoritized communities of students and families. For nearly a decade, she conducted research at the Research Alliance for New York City Schools at NYU—a Research-Practice Partnership with the NYC Department of Education (DOE). As Deputy Director of the Research Alliance, she helped shape the organization’s research agenda, obtained over $9 million in external grants, developed relationships with external partners, and led many of the organization’s large-scale mixed-method research projects focused on the NYC school system.