Stephen Santa-Ramirez, PhD (he/him/his)

Dr. Stephen Santa-Ramirez (he/him/his) is an Associate Professor of Higher Education at the University at Buffalo (UB), which operates on the unceded ancestral territory of the Seneca Nation of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy. His vast experiences in U.S. higher education and student affairs include work in Multicultural and LGBT+ Affairs, Residential Life and Housing, and Migrant Student Services. In addition to teaching at UB, Dr. Santa-Ramirez has taught for the Philadelphia Freedom Schools, Michigan State University, The University of Texas at Arlington, and Arizona State University.

Dr. Santa Ramirez's personal and professional experiences in higher education – and identity as a scholar-practitioner-advocate – have played formative roles in the development of his research agenda, which centers on the lives and knowledge of historically marginalized and economically neglected students. Broadly, he investigates the historical, ideological, and structural inequities that impact Black, Latinx, Indigenous, migrant, and other marginalized communities. Particularly, by employing critical, student-centered, and asset-based frameworks, he investigates campus racial climate, transitions and belongingness of first-generation students of color, college student activism and resistance, and the various ways race, ethnicity, im/migration status and policy inform the educational experiences of collegians who are undocumented.

In addition to authoring a host of book chapters, some of his published peer-reviewed articles can be located in The Review of Higher Education, The Journal of Higher Education, Journal of First-generation Student Success, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, among others. Additionally, he was the special issue editor for New Directions for Higher Education (journal) titled "Equitable and Humanizing Research, Policy, and Practice With and For Undocumented Collegians in the United States."

Dr. Santa-Ramirez is a 2024-2026 co-chair of the Latinx Network via ACPA-College Student Educators International, an Associate Editor for the College Student Affairs Journal (CSAJ), and is on the ASHE 2026 conference leadership team as a co-chair for local and community engagement.

Dr. Santa-Ramirez is an award-winning scholar, including the 2026 Outstanding Advocate Award via ACPA's Coalition & Networks, the 2025 ASHE Early Career Award, a 2024-2026 ACPA Emerging Scholar, a 2022-2024 National Academy of Education (NAEd)/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, and a 2022 ACPA Diamond Honoree. He was also the recipient of a 2023-2024 UB Exceptional Scholar-Young Investigator Award, the 2022-2023 GSE S.T.A.R. Faculty Award for Research, 2023 UB Pillar of Leadership Mentoring Award from the UB Division of Student Affairs, and the 2020-2021 UB GSE S.T.A.R. Faculty Award for Teaching. Furthermore, in recent years, he has received the Legacy of Leadership honor from West Chester University and was selected as a SUNY DEISJ Fellow, a fellow for NASPA's Emerging Faculty Leadership Academy, the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE), and New York University's Faculty First-Look.

As a lifelong learner, Dr. Santa-Ramirez has obtained certificates from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Public Policy & Government (Public Narrative: Leadership, Storytelling, and Action), University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Race & Equity in Education (Penn Equity Institute), and Arizona State University's School of Social Transformation (Socioeconomic Justice).

• Ph.D., Educational Policy and Evaluation, Arizona State University
• M.L.S., Master of Legal Studies (Business Law), UCLA School of Law
• M.A., Student Affairs Administration, Michigan State University
• BA, Communication Studies, West Chester University

• ASHE Early Career Award; Association for the Study of Higher Education; 2025-11-14;
• UB Exceptional Scholar – Young Investigator; University at Buffalo; 2024-05-01;
• ACPA Emerging Scholar; ACPA-College Student Educators Internstional; 2024-03-01;
• NAEd/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow 2022; National Academy of Education; 2022-05-09;
• Diamond Honoree; ACPA - College Student Educators International; 2022-03-08;

• Santa-Ramirez, S., Israni, V., & Lathan, I. (2025). Swimming against the current: Latinx doctoral student experiences through a bioecological lens. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 20, Article 12, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.28945/5589
• García-Louis, C., Santa-Ramirez, S., & Hinojosa, J. (2024). (In)Visibility to advocacy: The insider-outsider experiences of AfroLatinx higher education professionals. The Journal of Higher Education, 95(7), 917–941. http://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2023.2259773
• Santa-Ramirez, S. & Hall, K. A. (2023). UndocuJoy as resistance: Undocumented collegians' narratives of joy. Journal of College Student Development, 64(5), 572–588. http://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2023.a911791
• Santa-Ramirez, S. (2023). A historical snapshot of Latinx student activism from the 1960s – 1990s: A university archival analysis. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 22(1), 46-59. https://doi.org/10.1177/15381927211008681
• Santa-Ramirez, S., Wells, T., Sandoval, J., & Koro, M. (2022). Working through first-generation students of Color experiences, university mission, intersectionality, and post-subjectivity. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35(2), 109-124. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2020.1783012

• Valley, S., & Santa-Ramirez, S. (November 2025). Higher education as a site of joy: A systematic literature review of transgender, gender non-conforming, and undocumented student narratives. Research paper presentation at the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Annual Conference, Denver, CO.;
• Santa-Ramirez, S., Israni, V., & Lathan, I. (November 2024). Examining Latinx PhD Students' Experiences Using a Bioecological Lens. Research paper presentation at the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Annual Conference, Minneapolis, MN.;
• Alhadad, S. S. J., Vasco, D., & Santa-Ramirez, S. (June 2023). Imagining Generatively Together: Exploring Strategies for Deepening Problematizing in Design Thinking Towards Justice-oriented Futures. Research paper presentation at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences Annual Conference, Montréal, Canada.;
• Santa-Ramirez, S., & Hall, K. A. (November 2023). The Post-Graduation Transitional Experiences of Recently Graduated Undocumented Collegians. Research paper presentation at the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Annual Conference, Minneapolis, MN.;
• Wright, K., Ardoin, S., Mac., J., & Santa-Ramirez, S. (March 2024). Trailblazing Academia: Stories and Strategies of First-Gen Doctoral Graduates. Presentation at the ACPA – College Student Educators International Annual Conference, Chicago, IL.;

• In Community: Undocumented Collegians (Re)Imagining Together; Foundation and Research Organization; ACPA-College Student Educators International; Awarded; (08/29/2024-09/01/2025)
• So, What Happens Now?: The Post-Graduation Transitional Experiences of Undocu/DACAmented Collegians; Foundation and Research Organization; 2022 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship; Awarded; (09/01/2022-08/01/2023)
• Transitional Experiences of Collegians who are Undocu/DACAmented; Foundation and Research Organization; NASPA Foundation Channing Briggs Research Grant; Awarded; (05/01/2022-08/01/2023)
• Transitional Experiences of Collegians who are Undocu/DACAmented; Foundation and Research Organization; ACPA Foundation Research Grant; Awarded; (10/08/2021-10/08/2021)
• First-generation collegians navigating the transition into higher education during the global health pandemic COVID-19; Colleges / Universities; UB Graduate School of Education Seed Grant; Awarded; (09/01/2021-06/01/2022)

• Co-Chair, Local Community Engagement, ASHE 2026 Annual Conference
  Sep 2025-present
• SUNY Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (EDISJ) Fellow
  Sep 2025-present
• Co-Chair, Latinx Network, ACPA - College Student Educators International
  Mar 2024-Apr 2026
• Advisory Council, Voces Nuevas, The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU)
  Jul 2023-Jul 2025