Estela Mara Bensimon

Estela Mara Bensimon is a professor of higher education and co-director of the Center for Urban Education at the USC Rossier School of Education. Her current research is on issues of racial equity in higher education from the perspective of organizational learning and sociocultural practice theories. She is particularly interested in place-based, practitioner-driven inquiry as a means of organizational change in higher education. Dr. Bensimon has held the highest leadership positions in the Association for the Study of Higher Education (president, 2005–2006) and in the American Education Research Association—Division on Postsecondary Education (vice president, 1992–1994). She has served on the boards of the American Association for Higher Education and the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Dr. Bensimon was associate dean of the USC Rossier School of Education from 1996 to 2000 and was a Fulbright Scholar to Mexico in 2002. She earned her doctorate in higher education from Teachers College, Columbia University.