Nichole Garcia

Nichole M. Garcia, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Higher Education at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. Her research focuses on the educational experiences of racially minoritized students, Women of Color Feminisms, Critical Race Theory, and the development of Critical Race Feminista mixed- methodologies. She is co-editor of QuantCrit: An Antiracist Quantitative Approach to Educational Inquiry (Routledge, 2023) and the book series Justice by the Numbers: Advancing QuantCrit for Anti-Racist Quantitative Research (Routledge, 2024–2028). Her forthcoming books include LatinX Students in Higher Education: Re-Envisioning Student Success (Routledge, 2025) and Story(ing) Statistical Strategies using a Critical Race Feminista Quantitative Praxis (Routledge, in press). Dr. Garcia is the recipient of the 2024 AERA Scholars of Color Early Career Contribution Award and Rutgers’ Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. She currently serves as 2026 Conference Chair for the Association for the Study of Higher Education and is a 2025–2026 CENTRO Fellow at Hunter College

• Expertise & Research Interest

  Higher Education & College Access

  Race, Ethnic, & Gender Studies

• Recent & Selected Publications

  1. Garcia, N.M., Onyewuenyi, A., Shaffer, D.W., (in press). Critical Quantitative Ethnography (CritQE): A pathway toward convergence research and equity. Springer Nature Link.

  2. Mireles-Rios, R., Castro, I., Garcia, N.M, Hernandez, M., Cerda, R (in press). Funds of Knowledge: Family, Collective Autonomy, and Academic Mentors. Journal of Latinos in Education

  3. Okello, W. & Garcia, N.M. (in press). Against the Grain: Deep Reading as Abolitionist Praxis in Education. Curriculum Inquiry.

  4. Mireles-Rios, R., Garcia, N. M., Castro, I. M. J., Hernandez, M., & Cerda, R. (2024). Racial micro-affirmations: Latinx close friendships and ethnic identity development. Education Sciences, 14(7), 737. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14070737

  5. Garcia, N. M., & Garcia, S. F. (2024). Grief (Work) Is Heart (Work): A Critical Race Feminista Epistolary Exchange as an Offering on Death, Grief, and Well-Being to Academia. Education Sciences, 14(1), 58.

  6. **Garcia, N.M., & Danek, V. (2023). Shelter from the Storm: Disaster Capitalism and Puerto Rican Undergraduates in Post–Hurricane María Stateside Higher Education. Teachers College Record, 125(4), 182–211. https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681231182185

  7. Garcia, N.M., Velez, V., & Perez Huber, L. (2023). Can numbers be gender and race conscious? Advocating for a critical race feminista quantitative praxis in education. Equity, Excellence, & Education, 55 (1-2), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2022.2047413

  8. **Garcia, N.M., Ibarra, J., Mireles-Rios, R., Rios, V., Maldonado, K. (2022). Advancing QuantCrit to rethink the school-to-prison pipeline for Latinx and Black youth. Journal of Criminal Justice in Education, 33(2), 269-288. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/10511253.2022.2027481

  9. Garcia, N.M. & Davila, E. (2021). Spirit murdering: Terrains, trenches, and terrors in academia. Educational Foundations, 34 (1), 3-14. https: //www.caddogap.com

  10. Garcia, N.M. & Delgado Bernal, D. (2021). Remembering and revisiting pedagogies of the home. American Educational Research Journal, 58 (3) 567-601, https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831220954431

  11. Garcia, N.M. & Mireles-Rios, R. (2019). “You were going to go to college:” The role of Chicano father involvement with Chicana daughter’s college choice. American Educational Research Journal, 57 (5), 2059-2088. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219892004

  12. Garcia, N.M., Irizarry, J., Ruiz, Y. (2019). Al Esconder, hide and seek: RicanStructing college choice for Puerto Rican students in urban school. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 23 (1), 1-20. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13613324.2019.1631779

  13. Garcia, N. M. (2019) Pa’lante, siempre pa’lante!: Pedagogies of the home among Puerto Rican college educated families. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32 (6), 576-590. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/09518398.2019.1609116

  14. Mireles-Rios, R. & Garcia, N.M. (2019). What would your ideal graduate mentoring program look like?: Latina/o student success in higher education, Journal of Latinos and Education, 18 (4), 376-386. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/15348431.2018.1447937

  15. **Martinez, A., & Garcia, N. M. (2018). # HuelgaUPR: The kidnapping of the University of Puerto Rico, students activism, and the era of Trump. Frontiers in Education, 3, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2018.00084

  16. Garcia, N.M., López, N. & Vélez, V. (2018). QuantCrit: rectifying quantitative methods through critical race theory, Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 21(2), 149-157 https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13613324.2017.1377675

  17. **Garcia, N.M. & Mayorga, O. (2018). The threat of unexamined secondary data: a critical race transformative convergent mixed methods, Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 21(2), 231-252. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13613324.2017.1377415

  18. Kouyoumdjian, C., Guzmán, B. L., Garcia, N. M., & Talavera-Bustillos, V. (2017). A community cultural wealth examination of sources of support and challenges among Latino first-and second-generation college students at a Hispanic serving institution. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 16(1), 61-76. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192715619995

• Clinical Experience

  Assistant Professor, Rutgers University (2018)

  Lecturer, University of Pennsylvania (2017-2018)

  Teaching Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles (2014-2016)

  Teaching Assistant, University of California, Los Angeles (2014-2015)

  Teaching Assistant, University of California, Santa Barbara (2011-2012)

• Honors & Awards

  2024 Early Career Awardee, AERA Scholars of Color in Education Early Career Contribution Award. American Education Research Association

  2024 Awardee, Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Graduate School of Education.

  2024 Awardee, The Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence Award. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, University of Academic Affairs.

  2023-2024 Awardee, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, National Science Foundation Project Building Capacity for Equitable Research on STEM Learning Process using Quantitative Ethnography, Wisconsin, Madison

  2022 Awardee, Book-of-the-Year, American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, Las Vegas, Nevada

  2019-2020 Awardee, Emerging Scholar under 40, Diverse Issues in Higher Education

  2019-2020 Awardee, Faculty Fellows Program, American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, Costa Mesa, California

  2019-2020 Awardee, Division J: Higher Education, American Educational Research Association, Early Career Faculty Workshop, San Francisco, California

  2018-2019 Awardee, NASPA Emerging Faculty Leader Academy, Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, Los Angeles, California

  2018-2019 Awardee, NCES Data Institute: Using Federal Datasets to Support Research on Postsecondary Education (Institute), Association for Institutional Research, Washington, D.C.

  2018-2019 Awardee, ASHE Early Career Faculty Workshop (Sponsored by the Council for the Advancement of Higher Education Programs—CAHEP) Association for the Study of Higher Education Tampa, Florida

  2018-2019 Awardee, ASHE CEP Mentor-Protégé Program, Association for the Study of Higher Education, Tampa, Florida

• Files

  Download Nichole Garcia’s CV