Director

Cynthia V. Duarte, Ph.D.

Dr. Cynthia V. Duarte brings over 10 years’ experience in program development in areas of social justice, service learning, and diversity issues. She has run national internship programs, coordinated summer research programs and workshops to encourage students of color to pursue graduate work and collaborated on research addressing various social justice issues including urban and rural poverty, segregation and immigrant integration. Active in Ethnic Studies and Latino Studies she has developed curriculum, often with a service learning component, for various University programs as well as served on the board for the National Association for Chicana/o Studies. 

As a qualitative sociologist, Dr. Duarte’s academic work foregrounds a pressing question for contemporary society in her research: How do our dynamically changing social structures—waves of immigration, class dynamics, public policies, housing patterns—influence daily interactions and life chances in urban communities in an age of globalization? Dr. Duarte has spoken before both academic and public audiences at Yale University, Arizona State University, University of Southern Indiana, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute as well as at various national conferences. A native of the Los Angeles area, she earned her bachelors from the University of California Los Angeles and doctorate from Columbia University in New York. In addition to directing the Sarah W. Heath Center for Equality and Justice, Dr. Duarte is also a Assistant Professor of Sociology at California Lutheran University.