Dr. Vaquera specializes in Race and Ethnicity and Sociology of Education. She did her undergraduate work at Western Michigan University and received her MA and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of New Mexico. Dr. Vaquera’s research interest focuses on the educational pipeline of Latina/o students with special emphasis on access and persistence in higher education. She has worked from various vantage points (community organizer, mentor, instructor, administrator, and researcher), on the issue of Latina/o educational attainment. Thus, her interest in this field is informed from first-hand experiences as well as traditional academic training.

Dr. Vaquera had been teaching full time at John Carroll University since 2004. She regularly teaches the following courses:

SC 101: Introduction to Sociology
SC 255: Prejudice and Discrimination
SC 355: Comparative Race and Ethnic Relations
SC 353: Latina/o Transnational Experience
SC 460: Social Research Methods