Joy Alcantara Chuquiruna

Bio

Joy Alcantara obtained her master’s degree in educational research methodology from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She is an NC State alumni and is a current doctoral student at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Joy obtained her B.A. in psychology from NC State University in 2018 and is working on her Ph.D. in educational research methodology with a concentration on program evaluation at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Her research interests include access to higher education, developing family-school partnerships and family educational engagement initiatives, and understanding how to integrate critical race theories into evaluation frameworks.

Prior to obtaining her master’s degree, Joy served as a college adviser in rural North Carolina through NC State’s College Advising Corps. Through college advising, she was able to see how the lack of resources and educational equity affected her students’ access to higher education. This led her to pursue a graduate degree focusing primarily on researching and evaluating K-12 educational programs meant to overcome these educational inequities. Once in graduate school, Joy assisted in the evaluation of three different National Science Foundation programs focused on diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM. She also assisted in the evaluation of a local program focused on implementing restorative practices across 18 middle schools. Currently, Joy is working on developing her dissertation, which focuses on understanding how structures of racism and oppression naturally embedded in education and educational policy can exclude families of color from developing meaningful family-school partnerships.