Maritza E. Salazar

Maritza E. Salazar (she/her/ella) is a PhD student in the Urban Education Policy program and a Research Assistant at the Pullias Center for Higher Education. She is advised by Adrian Huerta in the Higher Education concentration.

Her interests bridge the K-12 and higher education pipeline and explore the relationship between education and the criminal legal system. In particular, she is interested in college access and equity for justice-involved youth and for youth attending continuation high schools.

Maritza holds an M.Ed in Educational Counseling from USC and a B.A. in Sociology from UC Riverside. She has volunteered with the Prison Education Project where she has facilitated courses inside the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, CA and at the Custody to Community Transitional Reentry Program in Santa Fe Springs, CA. She served as the co-director for the USC Underground Trojans where she assisted with an annual scholarship opportunity for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students at adult and juvenile facilities. 

2023        Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow 

2023        Hispanic Scholarship Federation (HSF) Scholar

2022        Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship Honorable Mention

2022        UCEA 2022-2024 Jackson Scholar

2022        UCEA David L. Clark National Graduate Student Research Seminar Scholar

2021        Just Education Policy Institute Fellow 

2020        Order of Arête recipient, University of Southern California

• Huerta, A.H., Salazar, M.E. & Matias Dizon, J.P. (2021). “No space for humanizing us:” Men of color identifying institutional needs at a rural university. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice. DOI: 10.1177/15210251211058636
• Huerta A.H., Lopez, E.F., Salazar, M.E., Torres, G. (2022). Bridging criminal justice scholarship into the field of higher education: Implications for research, practice, and policy. A.M. Nuñez (Ed.) Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research.