Guadalupe Lozano grew up in Argentina. She was born to first-generation medical doctors of European descent. Her father, a gregarious orthopedic surgeon, guitar, and piano aficionado, was killed in a car accident when Guadalupe was a child. His heritage was Asturian and Galician; Guadalupe strongly identifies with the Celtic culture of Northern Spain. Her mother, a retired biology professor, was a child of Italian and Swiss-Italian immigrants and an implicit role model in Guadalupe’s choice to pursue an academic career. Guadalupe completed a science and math-intensive high school education in Argentina, followed by initial university studies in economics and accounting. In spite of a strong desire to expand her educational horizons beyond science, Guadalupe soon refocused her career choice on mathematics. She returned to the U.S.—where she had been an exchange student during high school— and completed a B.S. in mathematics at Whitworth University, followed by an M.S. and a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Arizona. Guadalupe’s passion for unveiling geometric structures in dynamical systems competed strongly with her growing interest in educational epistemology, pedagogical innovation, and conceptual learning. After postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Michigan and the University of New Mexico, Guadalupe returned to Arizona and focused her research on quantitative models for measuring mathematical knowledge, both at the K-12 and university levels, particularly calculus. She also spearheaded mechanisms for making mathematics research outwards facing and cultivating public advocacy for mathematical sciences. Today, Guadalupe works to broker transformation at a rapidly-evolving boundary: the intersectional space between historically minoritized populations and U.S. university education, particularly in STEM. Guadalupe serves as Director for the Center for University of Education Scholarship (CUES) under the Office of the Provost, and is a co-Founder of the STEM in HSI (Hispanic Serving Institutions) Working Group at the University of Arizona.

Guadalupe’s non-traditional trajectory in academia—her formal training as a mathematician, her research in mathematics education, and various university-level roles—has led her to develop a disruptive boundary-crossing know-how for critical contributions at the intersection of research and service, broadly understood.

• As a co-founder of the STEM in HSI Working Group, Guadalupe is helping develop capacity for timely ideation/innovation that leverages assets/opportunities adaptively. After being awarded and chairing one of eleven national conferences to inform the design of NSF new HSI program, Guadalupe co-founded the STEM in HSI Working Group and was lead author on a comprehensive consensus report identifying 13 critical focus areas and 28 recommendations for transforming STEM education at HSIs. The report was strategically designed both to respond to NSF, and also offer critical guidance for change and innovative funding pursuits of relevance to stakeholders from HSIs and emergent HSIs across the US. Over the 8 months since it was first published, the report has been downloaded over 240 times. In large part, Guadalupe’s HSI work aims to promote change in universities’ orientation from outcomes (traditional academic success) to purpose (the preparation of professionals who can serve increasingly diverse populations in the U.S). Under Guadalupe’s lead, the STEM in HSI Working Group funded three adaptive case studies to spearhead critical institutional change at the intersection of equity, culture, success measures, and student identities.

• As Director for the newly founded, privately funded CUES, Guadalupe is enabling mechanisms to increase university faculty buy-in for deploying evidence-based pedagogies at scale. Arguing that educational challenges that call for the juxtaposition of multiple expertise move the needle of change perhaps more slowly, but also quite robustly, Guadalupe is creating mechanisms for change that leverage diverse faculty assets and replace perceived deficit-based, top-down guidance. Under Guadalupe’s leadership, CUES launched a new workshop series on Mapping Educational Challenges, aimed to bring together intersectional faculty expertise to propose new frontiers in university scholarship. Under Guadalupe’s leadership, CUES also funded the second-ever cohort of Faculty Distinguished Fellowships, cutting-edge faculty projects that boldly push the boundary of innovation and scholarship in university education.

• As an Associate Research Professor in Mathematics, and Director for External Relations and Evaluation for the Mathematical Sciences, Guadalupe works on multiple fronts to forge meaningful collaborations across boundaries. Guadalupe has helped bridge cross-institutional boundaries through grant-funded projects aiming to disrupt the mathematics transition from community college to university and multiple co-authorships, including the MAA Evidence Based Teaching and Learning Practices Guide. Guadalupe has also helped bridge cross-disciplinary boundaries through the development and implementation of curriculum in Math-Policy/Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School and cross-sector boundaries through the establishment of a privately endowed mathematics lecture series for the public.

• Finally, as a stakeholder and advocate for diversity in the mathematical sciences, Guadalupe contributes to a variety of projects poised to increase equity, diversity and inclusion. She is an active member of the AMATYC equity committee and the Advisory Board for the EU-based Gender Gap in Mathematics and the Natural Sciences Project.

“Hispanic Heritage month marks a dedicated time to reflect upon who we are as Hispanic and Latinx people in a culture that both helps define us and has the potential to blend our unique identities with those others in new ways. By illustrating quite concretely how Hispanics and Latinxs are contributing to our US culture, our academic institutions, our public knowledge, and our ever-changing ways of life, we embrace the opportunity to preserve our identity and our legacy in a context of growth and enrichment for both present and future generations in the land we live in.”