Nancy López

Nancy López is associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico.

She directs and co-founded the Institute for the Study of "Race" & Social Justice.

Dr. López has been named the Inaugural Academic Leadership Academy (ALA) Faculty Fellow, UNM Division for Equity and Inclusion (DEI). 

Dr. López received National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) funding for a workshop on "race" in health policy research (April 2011).  She co-edited a volume based on this workshop entitled, "Mapping 'Race': Critical Approaches to Health Disparities Research" (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, Critical Issues in Health and Medicine Book Series, 2013).  

She has also received funding from the Sociological Initiatives Foundation for a study of discipline in a diverse New Mexico public school, as well as funding from the NM Public Education Department for a study entitled, "Indian Education in New Mexico, 2025." 

Her book Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education (New York: Routledge, 2003) focuses on Dominicans, West Indians, and Haitians to explain why girls of color are succeeding at higher rates than their male counterparts.

Her current work focuses on the creation of meaningful conceptualizations of "race" as a dynamic multi-dimensional and multi-level social construction.

The daughter of Dominican immigrants, Dr. López was born in New York City and was raised in NYC public housing; Spanish is her first language.