About the Director
Dr. Lorri Santamaría
Director of Faculty Development and Inclusive Excellence
Dr. Lorri J. Santamaría is the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Inaugural Director of Faculty Development and Inclusive Excellence at California Lutheran University.
She graduated from The University of Arizona with a BA in Bilingual Elementary School Education (1994), then received a MA (1997), and PhD in Bilingual (Spanish/English) Special Education Rehabilitation and School Psychology (2000) from The University of Arizona with an emphasis in Multicultural Multilingual Education. Lorri attained certification in Educational Administration (2002) in the state of California.
Over the last 20+ years, Dr. Santamaría has held a wide variety of diversity, equity, and inclusion related positions in public education ranging from bilingual classroom teacher to bilingual special day class teacher to DEI district administrator in Arizona and California, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership promoting social, justice, & equity; and Professor of Multicultural Multilingual Education.
In 2012, Lorri was appointed to the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland in New Zealand where she was Associate Professor Educational Leadership promoting Diversity and Head of School for Learning, Development, and Professional Practice.
In 2017 she became the Director and Principal Investigator for the Mixteco/Indígena Community Organizing Project (MICOP) in Oxnard, CA where she worked alongside, with, for, and on behalf of migrant Indigenous community members studying Indigenous healing modalities to address stress, anxiety, and depression.
Her 60+ peer-reviewed publications, international research rewards, and record of
empirical research proceed her current appointment at Cal Lutheran where she shares
years of experience in leadership, teaching, research, and service in higher education
to inform faculty development initiatives in service to a new generation of culturally,
linguistically, gender, and ability diverse faculty and students in a Liberal Arts
university in Southern California.