Kris Gutiérrez

Kris is a member of the National Academy of Education, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the International Society of the Learning Sciences, American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. She is past president of AERA and was appointed by President Obama to the National Board for the Institute of Education Sciences, for which she served as vice-chair. Her work in social design experiments seeks to leverage students’ everyday concepts and practices to ratchet up expansive and equitable forms of learning. Key examples of long-standing collaborations with immigrant and migrant communities include Las Redes, a 15-year-long afterschool program that privileged hybrid language practices for youth in grades K-5, El Pueblo Mágico, a STEM-oriented after-school program, and the UCLA Migrant Student Leadership Program for California youth from migrant farmworker backgrounds. 

Today, Kris is an award-winning educator, serving as the Carol Liu Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on the learning sciences, literacy, educational policy, and qualitative and design-based approaches to inquiry. Her research examines learning in designed environments, with attention to students from nondominant communities and Dual Language Learners.