Dr. Leslie D. Gonzales serves as Professor of Higher Education and Department Head of Educational Policy Studies and Practices. She also serves as the Director for the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona.

As a working-class-Chicana-first-generation-college-student-turned academic, who earned all three academic degrees from Hispanic Serving Institutions, Gonzales is committed to the advancement of inclusion and equity in higher education, generally, and in the context of the academic profession/academic labor more specifically. Her research agenda is largely focused on the study of academic careers and faculty evaluation, with a special focus on how evaluative practices shape the experiences, outcomes, and mobility of women of color academics. Much of her work, subsequently, addresses organizational culture, change, and transformation.

Gonzales’s work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and she is published in many outlets, including The Journal of Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, Teacher’s College Record, and the Review of Education Research. Dr. Gonzales has served in several national leadership roles, including as member of the Council for Women in Science, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine, as the 2023 Inaugural Conference Chair for the Association for the Study of Higher Education, as the 2019 Program Chair for the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and as member of AERA’s Executive Committee of Scholars of Color.

Before coming to the University of Arizona, Gonzales served as a Professor and Faculty Advocate at Michigan State University—a role that allowed Gonzales to bring empirical research, theory, and practice together to advocate for a more inclusive academic profession.