Early in his PhD program at USC Rossier, Edgar Lopez was interviewing Latina and Latino social science doctoral students about their experiences when one participant told him something he has never forgotten: “This is the first time someone has asked me how I’m doing in my program, and it feels validating.”
That comment weighed heavily on Lopez. “It was a powerful reminder that behind every doctoral student is a personal story that often goes unseen,” Lopez recalls. For Lopez, a first-generation college student and the son of immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico, the moment affirmed the importance of the research he was beginning, research that has now earned national recognition and is helping to reshape conversations about mentorship and doctoral education.
The research project began long before Lopez entered the classroom. During the summer before taking a course taught by his advisor, Associate Professor of Education Adrian H. Huerta, Lopez read and annotated over 150 articles assigned by Huerta to deepen his understanding of the literature in the field. The work was intense, but it prepared him to think critically about the questions he wanted to explore, Lopez says.
As the course’s final project, Huerta challenged Lopez to design and submit his first qualitative research study for an Institutional Review Board, a committee charged with reviewing studies involving human subjects. This assignment would eventually become the foundation of Lopez’s dissertation.
The study, Lopez says, was inspired by his own experiences in higher education. Lopez credits his success to the mentors he found along the course of his academic journey, as they, like Huerta, “helped me every step of the way,” he says.
But Lopez wondered whether his experience was unique. He wondered if other Latinx doctoral students were receiving the same kind of mentorship. Did they also have faculty mentors who believed in them, advocated for them and helped them navigate the challenges of doctoral education? These questions drove his research. Initially, “I wanted to recruit 8-10 participants max,” Lopez says. So, when he ended up getting more than 60 students interested in participating in the study, he knew that he had hit a nerve.
After reviewing the applicants, Lopez identified a total of 40 that met the criteria for the study: PhD students in the social sciences at R1 universities. “The response told me there was a story that needed to be told,” Lopez says. He conducted multiple rounds of interviews with the participants in 2021. Over the course of the year, Lopez listened to stories that were “as heartbreaking as they were inspiring,” he says.
“Every interview stayed with me,” Lopez says. “Participants trusted me with some of the most difficult moments of their doctoral journeys, but they also shared stories of hope, resilience and the mentors who helped them keep going.”
Once the interviews were complete, Huerta knew the project had become something much larger than a class assignment. “He told me I had enough material for a book, maybe two,” Lopez says. For his dissertation, Lopez chose to narrow his focus to the experiences of the Latino men he interviewed.
As he began writing, Lopez set an ambitious personal goal. “I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to aim for a Dissertation of the Year,’” he says. “It wasn’t about the award itself. It was about challenging myself to produce the best scholarship I could … something that honored the stories participants had trusted me to tell.”
Lopez’s dissertation, “Fight, flight, or fatigue: Examining how Latino/x men develop validating mentoring relationships to overcome institutional racism in PhD programs,” examines how and when Latino/x men in PhD programs identified and relied on faculty mentorship, navigated institutional challenges during their doctoral programs, and how those experiences influenced their decisions to pursue academic careers. The study identifies mentoring practices that helped participants persist through adversity and offers recommendations for how colleges and universities can better support doctoral students.
Lopez’s goal of writing an award-winning dissertation has now become a reality. He has been awarded not one, but four national Dissertation of the Year awards:
2025 Dissertation of the Year Award Recipient from the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Mentorship & Mentoring Practices Special Interest Group (SIG)
2026 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the AERA SIG 168 Graduate and Postdoctoral Education Across Disciplines
2026 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the AERA SIG 46 Latina/o/x Research Issues
2nd Place Winner for 2026 Dissertation of the Year Award from the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE)
Edgar achieved something very few doctoral students have reached: four national Dissertation of the Year awards!” Huerta says. “These awards cement his research as groundbreaking and signal the importance of faculty mentoring and doctoral program climate in ensuring that Latino men are successful in earning their PhDs. I’m beyond proud of him and look forward to reading his future book.
Looking back at his path to completing his dissertation and his doctoral program, Lopez credits his success to his close mentorship with Huerta, something that he acknowledges that a lot of other doctoral students haven’t been able to find. “I feel he cares a lot. He invested in me, challenged me to become a better researcher and has been an advocate for me,” Lopez says.
Lopez graduated in 2024, but two years later, Huerta is still checking in on him. He regularly sends him opportunities that fit his skill set and interests, connects him with colleagues, and champions him as Lopez carves out his professional path.
Currently, Lopez is the research and grant development officer at CSU Northridge, where he partners with faculty across all disciplines to develop competitive grant proposals and secure external funding from local, state and federal agencies, as well as private foundations, to advance research and innovation. Previously, he worked as a research analyst at the Institute for Higher Education Policy as well as an intern with Lumina Foundation.
As for the future, Lopez is interested in pursuing a career in a faculty role or perhaps as an executive director for a non-profit focused on higher education research to improve student success.
Lopez continues to build on his research through new scholarly projects and publications. He is currently developing several research articles from his doctoral work and hopes to publish his dissertation research as a full-length book. He also plans to build on his earlier research examining the experiences of Latina doctoral students and the educational journeys of Oaxacan undergraduate students. Lopez continues to collaborate with Huerta on his research projects as well.
For those currently pursuing their doctorates, Lopez stresses the importance of having a “clear sense of purpose, while also recognizing that success is rarely achieved alone.”
“Having long-term goals helped me stay motivated through the most challenging moments of my PhD. Equally important is finding people who believe in you, advocating for yourself, and being willing to ask for help when you need it,” Lopez says.
Lopez also urges doctoral students to seek out mentors and community. “There will be moments when you may question whether you belong,” he says. “Almost everyone I interviewed experienced that feeling at some point. What often made the difference wasn’t simply working harder. It was having mentors and a community that reminded them why they belonged. Have a long-term vision of what you want to accomplish. Find good mentors who care about your success, build relationships with people who will challenge and support you, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. None of us get through a PhD alone. ”
