Karla Velasco

She/her/ella

Karla Velasco is a doctoral student studying in the Department of Education Policy, Organization & Leadership at Illinois, with a focus on global studies in education. She is a Gates Millennium Scholar, a McNair Program graduate, a fellow at the Graduate College, and a teaching assistant at the College of Education. Prior to arriving in Urbana-Champaign, she worked in social-justice-oriented educational summer programs for youth of color. Velasco also worked with a family in Mexico that lost someone to feminicide and provided advocacy services to survivors of domestic violence in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.

Education

• Doctoral student, Global Studies in Education, Education Policy, Organization & Leadership, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• M.Ed., Harvard University
• M.A., Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin
• B.A., Latin American and Latino Studies, Depaul University

Projects

• ASPIRE Regional Collaboratives

Research Areas

• Trauma-informed pedagogies and programming in higher education institutions
• Latinx student experiences in higher education with an emphasis on community colleges
• Comparative K-16 education in the U.S. and Mexico
• Gender-based violence, feminicide
• Intersectional feminisms