Adriana Villavicencio

Adriana Villavicencio is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Her research examines why educational inequities persist—and how schools, systems, and educators can disrupt them to advance equity and justice. Focusing particularly on the experiences of students of color and immigrant youth, her work investigates how policies and organizational conditions shape educational opportunities, as well as how educators and leaders navigate these conditions in their everyday practice.

Using mixed-methods and community-engaged approaches, Villavicencio has studied ambitious efforts to promote racial justice in schools, improve schools for immigrant and multilingual youth, and reduce school segregation. More recently, she has studied how educational leaders navigate political polarization and anti-DEI policies. Across these areas, her scholarship examines both the forces that constrain educational change and the possibilities for creating more equitable educational experiences and outcomes.

Since 2014, Dr. Villavicencio has secured more than $12 million in research funding from organizations including the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation. She is the author of Am I My Brother’s Keeper? Educational Opportunities and Outcomes for Black and Brown Boys (Harvard Education Press), which examines one of the nation’s most ambitious efforts to address racial inequities in education. The book received the American Educational Studies Association Critics’ Choice Book Award and was named a Choice Editors’ Pick by the Association of College and Research Libraries. Her scholarship has also appeared in leading education journals including American Educational Research Journal, Educational Policy, Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, and Urban Education, and her research has been featured or cited in outlets including NPR, The Washington Post, Politico, Newsweek, Education Week, and Chalkbeat.

In 2025, Dr. Villavicencio received the 2025 Jack A. Culbertson Early Career Award from the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), which recognizes significant contributions to the field of educational leadership. She also received the Bridge People Award from the Leadership for Social Justice SIG of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and a Best Paper Award from AERA’s Organizational Theory SIG. At the University of California Irvine, she received an Outstanding Emerging Faculty award and a Faculty Mentorship Award for Inclusive Excellence. 

Before joining the faculty at NYU, Villavicencio was an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine. She previously spent nearly a decade at the Research Alliance for New York City Schools at NYU, a research-practice partnership with the New York City public school system, where she served as Deputy Director. She began her career as a middle and high school English teacher in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Bangalore, India. These experiences continue to shape her commitment to producing research that is both rigorous and responsive to the questions facing educators, schools, and communities.

Villavicencio earned her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from NYU Steinhardt, her M.A. in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and her B.A. in English from Columbia University.