Project MALES is excited to welcome our newest Faculty and Research Affiliates: Dr. Derrick R. Brooms, Dr. Susana H. Hernandez, Dr. Carlos Martinez-Cano, Dr. Guillermo Ortega, Dr. Oscar E. Patrón, and Dr. Michael V. Singh.
Derrick R. Brooms, Ph.D. is faculty in Sociology at the University of Cincinnati where he is affiliate faculty in Africana Studies and Higher Education; Dr. Brooms serves as a youth worker as well. His research and activism primarily focuses on educational equity, race and racism, diversity and inclusion, and identity. His education research primarily centers on Black men and boys’ pathways to and through college as well as on their engagement on campus and identity development. He also examines the collegiate experiences of Black and Latino men in addition to Black boys’ and men’s lived experiences and representations in the media. He is author of Being Black, Being Male on Campus: Understanding and Confronting Black Male Collegiate Experiences (2017), co-author of Empowering Men of Color on Campus: Building Student Community in Higher Education(2018) and co-editor of Living Racism: Through the Barrel of the Book (2018). He also serves as editor for the “Critical Race Studies in Education” book series with SUNY Press.
Susana H. Hernandez, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies (ELPS) at the University of Houston. In this role, she supports the qualitative data collection and analysis for the Start Strong to Finish (SSTF) Project—a collaborative research project with Houston Community College. Susana’s student and professional experiences in higher education as a first-generation Latina shapes and informs her research. Her research interests are centered on using critical and non-deficit frameworks to study how higher education state and institutional policies may create hostile campus environments for racially and ethnically minoritized students and faculty. Susana graduated in May 2020 with her Ph.D. in Educational Administration with an emphasis in Higher Education Administration from Texas A&M University. She earned her B.A. in Criminal Justice with minors in Sociology and Chicano Studies from the University of Wyoming and M.Ed. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from Iowa State University.
Carlos Martinez-Cano, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development at the University of Washington. He is a native of the U.S./México Borderlands and an anthropologist specializing in ethnographic investigations of non-dominant youth populations and their STEAM-related learning practices. As an educator, Dr. Martinez-Cano has spent time over the past twenty years as a literacy volunteer, English instructor at language institutes overseas, a K-12 bilingual and ESL classroom teacher, higher education lecturer, teaching assistant, and researcher. His research intersects with many fields and disciplines, including but not limited to literacy, science, psychology, sociolinguistics, and ethnic studies. Throughout, the broadly conceived questions remain, “How are young people from marginalized communities learning together in ways that positively shape their identities? How are they utilizing and creating technologies that demonstrate their agency across multiple contexts? And, how can researchers support the informal learning practices of youth based on the cultural values of their home communities?”
Guillermo Ortega, Ph.D. is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Iowa State University (ISU). He received his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Houston. He earned his M.Ed. in Higher Education and his B.A. in History and Sociology from the University of California, Riverside. At ISU, Guillermo is helping develop a college access program for Latinx students in Iowa. Additionally, he serves on ASHE’s Athletic Committee and AERA’s Education and Sports SIG Leadership Committee. Guillermo’s research interests include Intercollegiate Athletics, College Athletes, Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), Latinx Students, Latinx Leadership, College Access, Persistence, Qualitative and Quantitative Methods.
Oscar E. Patrón, Ph. D. is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society and Visiting Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs at Indiana University. Patrón received his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and spent the last two years of his program as a Visiting Predoctoral Scholar and Research Associate at the USC Race and Equity Center at the University of Southern California. Patrón’s research interests broadly examine issues of race, gender, and sexuality among Latina/o students in higher education; men of color; and resilience through critical approaches. His dissertation, which was funded by a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation fellowship, examined processes of resilience that gay Latino men underwent as it related to social identities most salient to them through an intersectional lens. In discussing students’ identities, he situated them within larger systems of oppression.
Michael V. Singh, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Davis. He received his Ph.D. in Education from UC Berkeley in 2019 and was later a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Chicana/o Studies at UC Santa Barbara. Dr. Singh’s scholarship is guided by questions of racial and gender justice in education, with a focus on education initiatives targeting Latino men and boys. His research has three interrelated strands: 1) Ethnographic explorations of Latino manhood amidst neoliberal framings of race and urban schooling, 2) The professional experiences and pedagogical practices of Latino male educators, 3) Everyday refusals and queer disruptions among Latino men and boys. His research has been published in journals such as Race Ethnicity and Education and Educational Studies and supported by fellowships from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation and the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues at UC Berkeley. He was born and raised in Woodland, CA.
For more information about our Faculty and Research Affiliates and our Research Institute please visit our web page.
