Luis A. Leyva

At intersections of gender studies, higher education, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), Leyva’s research examines historically marginalized students’ narratives of experience as engineering, computing, and mathematical science majors. These narratives reveal how interlocking systems of power, including racism, sexism, and heterosexism, shape unique experiences of oppression and resistance in undergraduate STEM education across intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and other identities. His research informs inclusive practices in undergraduate classroom teaching and co-curricular support spaces that affirm students’ intersectional identities and increase their persistence in STEM majors.

Leyva is presently a 2020 Postdoctoral Fellow with the National Academy of Education and Spencer Foundation. He is the recipient of the 2018 Early Career Publication Award from the Research in Mathematics Education special interest group of the American Educational Research Association, a 2019 honoree in Lathisms (an online showcase of Latinx mathematics education researchers, American Mathematical Society & Mathematical Association of America), and a 2015 Dissertation Fellowship from the National Academy of Education and Spencer Foundation.

Leyva is the director of the PRISM (Power, Resistance & Identity in STEM Education) Research Lab at Peabody College. The lab’s research holds an “intersectional prism” up to historically marginalized populations’ narratives of experience to both illuminate and disrupt multi-dimensional forms of oppression in undergraduate STEM education.