Sophia Rodriguez

Sophia Rodriguez is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and Sociology of Education at NYU Steinhardt. Her integrated research agenda addresses issues related to racial equity, urban education, leadership, and policy, and centralizes minoritized youth voices. Her current longitudinal projects, funded by the Spencer and W.T. Grant Foundations (2019-2027), utilize mixed-methods and ethnographic designs to investigate how community-school partnerships, teachers, leaders, and critical school-based personnel promote equity and advocate for immigrant youth. Her scholarly work has appeared in Anthropology & Education Quarterly, AERA Open, Educational Policy, Educational Researcher, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, Teachers College Record, and Urban Education, and published in media outlets such as the Washington Post, the Conversation, and Chalkbeat as well as covered in Education Week. She founded and directs the ImmigrantEdNext Research Lab, a public-facing research hub that involves mentoring doctoral students in multiple projects about how districts, schools, community-based organizations can create spaces of belonging for immigrant youth. As a first-generation college student and PhD, she values mentoring as part of her collaborative approach to research and has been recognized for her efforts to support junior researchers and graduate students of color in this effort.