Dr. Lara Perez-Felkner is a Professor of Higher Education and Sociology in the Higher Education Program within the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences at Florida State University. She is also an Affiliated Faculty member in the Department of Sociology, and Senior Research Associate with FSU’s Center for Postsecondary Success. Her research uses developmental and sociological perspectives to examine the mechanisms that shape entry into and persistence with respect to college and career pathways, from secondary school through the workforce. She especially focuses on post-secondary access and success in scientific and technological career fields.
Published work appears in major education and social/behavioral science journals including as well in several edited volumes. She serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Higher Education, Sociology of Education, and others, and is now Associate Editor of Research in Higher Education. She has been supported by external funders including the National Science Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. Her research has been covered on a range of outlets including ABC News and National Public Radio affiliates, the Conversation, No Jargon, Psychology Today, and Science News for Students.
At FSU, institutional leadership efforts have focused on institutional excellence, faculty development, and research capacity building. This includes being a Faculty Fellow at the university level and the Academy of Scholars at the college level. She has been a member of the APLU iChange ASPIRE alliance team, the President’s Council, and now leads FSU’s NSF ADVANCE team and is Co-Team Lead for AAAS SEA Change. She has been engaged in institutional excellence and research as a W.T. Grant Institutional Change Mid-Career Fellow, Student Experience Research Network (SERN) Mid-Career Fellow, and Institute in Critical Quantitative, Computational, & Mixed Methodologies (ICQCM) NSF Scholar.
Dr. Perez-Felkner’s graduate courses include Higher Education Outcomes Assessment, Sociology of Education, and Student Development Theory. Impressed by the enthusiasm and caliber of FSU students, she has and continues to mentor and support students in collaborative research on higher education pathways to degrees and careers. She values the integration of teaching, mentoring, and research. She has received FSU’s Transformation through Teaching Award in 2014, was a finalist for the FSU College of Education’s Robert M. Gagne Research Award (2015, 2021, 2022), won the 2016 and 2022 Hardee Center Supervisor/Mentor Award, and received the 2018-19 FSU Graduate Faculty Mentor Award, the FSU College of Education’s 2021 Graduate Teaching Award, and the university’s 2022 Inclusive Teaching and Advising Award.
Prior to FSU, Dr. Perez-Felkner developed professional experience in Student and Academic Affairs. While earning her B.A. at Wesleyan University, she held leadership positioned in residence life, admissions, and student leadership alongside work-study and McNair program research roles. She was then a post-placement counselor for grade 7-10 students with Prep for Prep, helping underrepresented students transition from neighborhood public schools to public magnet and private day and boarding college preparatory schools. At the University of Chicago, she served as a Resident Head in the College and on an NSF AGEP Social Sciences Division Taskforce on Diversity for the Professoriate.
View Dr. Perez-Felkner’s website
Selected Recent Publications
Armbrister, C., Perez-Felkner, L., Dickens, T., Lowe, K. (conditional accept) Manufacturing the STEM Workforce: The Effect of Structured Undergraduate Research Experiences at a Shared Engineering Workspace on STEM Student Retention. American Society for Engineering Education, PEER Proceedings.
Nicolas, M. & Perez-Felkner, L. (in press). The (Mis)Education of Black Boys: Exploring the Contributing Factors of Their Accelerated Curricular Decision-Making Process. Journal of African American Males in Education.
Perez-Felkner, L. Acosta, J., Iturriaga, V. (in press). Postsecondary Student Success for Latin* Students. Ch 11 in Shouping Hu and Joseph O’Shea (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook on Postsecondary Student Success. https://journals.flvc.org/StudentSuccessHandbook
Nhien, C., Perez-Felkner, L., Li, Y., & Hu, S. (2024). Pathways into Computing Fields by Florida’s Community College Students: An Intersectional Descriptive Analysis. Community College Journal of Research and Practice. Impact factor = 1.0. ESCI-indexed. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2024.2425323
Perez-Felkner, L. Erichsen, K., Li, Y., Chen, J., Hu, S., Ramirez Surmeier, L., Shore, C. (2024). Computing Education Interventions to Increase Gender Equity from 2000 to 2020: A Systematic Literature Review. Review of Educational Research, XX(X), p. 1-45. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543241241536
Zhao, T., Perez-Felkner, L., & Hu, S. (2024). The Impact of Merit Aid on STEM Major Choices: A Propensity Score Approach. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, XX(X), p. 1-21. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737241254842 Supplemental material available here.
Perez-Felkner, L., Fluker, C., Armbrister, C. & Dickens, T. (2024). Manufacturing Inclusive Excellence: An Intersectional, Mixed Methods Study of Engineering Identity among Undergraduate Research Students at a Historically Black University. American Society for Engineering Education, PEER Proceedings, Portland, OR. https://sftp.asee.org/47758 doi: 10.18260/1-2–47758
Perez-Felkner, L., Rodriguez, S., & Fluker, C. (Eds.) (2024). Latin* Students in Engineering: An Intentional Focus on a Growing Population. Rutgers University Press.
Erichsen, K., Šaras, E., & Perez-Felkner, L. (2024). Towards Institutional Transformation: Warming the Chilly Climate for Women in STEM Through Macrostructural Change. Frontiers in Education. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2024.1328574
Perez-Felkner, L., Ramirez Surmeier, L., & Rezaei, R. (2024). Gender and Educational Inequality. In Mark Berends, Barbara Schneider, & Stephen Lamb (Eds.), The Sage Handbook on Sociology of Education, pp. 142-158. Sage Publications. Free full-text here.
Chen, J., Perez-Felkner, L., Nhien, C., Hu, S., Erichsen, K. (2023). Gender Differences in Motivational and Curricular Pathways Towards Postsecondary Computing Majors. Research in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-023-09751-w
Holton-Thomas, A., Perez-Felkner, L., & Portis Templeton, D. (2023). How Do Institutional Type and Transfer Affect Contemporary College Students’ Degree Attainment? Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 47(9), p. 602-607. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2022.2156633 Free full-text for those w/out subscription access here.
Perez-Felkner, L., Gast, M. J., & Ovink, S. M. (2022). Liberating our writing: Critical narratives and systemic changes in education and the social sciences. Multicultural Perspectives, 24(3). DOI: 10.1080/15210960.2022.2127400 Free full-text for those w/out subscription access here.
Perez-Felkner, L., Baker-Smith, C., & Goldrick-Rab, S. (2022) Does Rent-Free Community Housing Make a Difference in Higher Education Outcomes? Report published by the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice. Full-text here.
Fluker, C., Perez-Felkner, L., & McCoy, K. (2022). Students’ Perceptions of an REU Summer Internship Program and their Engineering Identity Development: An Equity-Centered Analysis. American Society for Engineering Education, PEER Proceedings, Minneapolis, MN. https://strategy.asee.org/40969
Zhao, T. & Perez-Felkner, L. (2022) Perceived Abilities or Academic Interests? Longitudinal High School Science and Mathematics Effects on Postsecondary STEM Outcomes by Gender and Race. International Journal of STEM Education, 9(42), 1-26. DOI: 10.1186/s40594-022-00356-w
Perez-Felkner, L. (2022). Transforming Opportunity to Support STEM Success for All. Policy Brief published with Scholars Strategy Network (SSN) and Student Experience Research Network (SERN).
Doran, E. E., Davis, R. D., Rodriguez Vargas, L., Perez-Felkner, L., Smith, M. R., & De Leon Rodriguez, N. (2021). Student success & STEM. In V. A. Sansone & M. Hernandez (Eds.), Working beyond borders to cultivate knowledge and support for Puerto Rican colleges and universities: Post-traditional student characteristics, STEM outcomes, and financial context in Puerto Rico, (pp. 22-29). Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE).
Perez-Felkner, L. (2021). Affirmative Action Challenges Keep on Keeping On: Responding to Shifting Federal and State Policy. Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 25(1), 19-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603108.2018.1529639. See also public communication article in The Conversation, republished by various news outlets.
Perez-Felkner, L. (2020). EDITORIAL: Surpassing STEM’s Gender Limitations: Structures, Interventions, and Systems Change. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology, 11(3), 357–360.
Perez-Felkner, L., Ford, J., Zhao, T., Anthony, M, Harrison, J., & Rahming, S. (2020) “Basic Needs Insecurity Among Doctoral Students: What It Looks Like and How to Address It.” About Campus, January/February 2020, pp. 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086482219899649
Perez-Felkner, L., Felkner, J., Nix, S., & Magalhães, M. (2020). The Puzzling Relationship between International Development and Gender Equity: The Case of STEM Postsecondary Education in Cambodia. International Journal of Educational Development. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2019.102102