Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco
Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, the ninth Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston, is a scholar best known for his empirical and conceptual research in the fields of psychological anthropology and cultural psychology with a focus on the study of mass migration, climate change, education, and globalization. Prior to his return to the Commonwealth, Suárez-Orozco served as the inaugural UCLA Wasserman Dean, leading two academic departments, 16 nationally renowned research institutes, and two innovative demonstration schools at UCLA’s School of Education & Information Studies.
A prolific author, Harvard University Press, Stanford University Press, University of California Press, Cambridge University Press, New York University Press, Columbia University Press, and others have published his award-winning books and edited volumes. His scholarly papers, in a range of disciplines and languages, appear in leading journals, including Harvard Educational Review, Harvard Business Review, Revue Française de Pédagogie (Paris), Cultuur en Migratie (Leuven), Temas: Cultura, Ideologia y Sociedad (Havana), Ethos, The Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Policy Review, and others. He regularly contributes to national and international media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Hill, U.S News and World Report, The Huffington Post, CNN, NPR, CNN Español, MSNBC, and others. In 2024, he co-authored the Planetary Call to Action for Climate Change Resilience, signed by His Holiness Pope Francis.
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (currently serving on the Trust Board), the National Academy of Education, and former Trustee of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Chancellor is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Thomas Mann House, Member of the Board of Directors, Massachusetts High Tech Council, Member of the Board of Director of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, Member of the Board of Directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, Member of the Boston Private Industry Council, Member of Sustainable Development Solutions Network USA Leadership Council. Dr. Suárez-Orozco is the recipient of multiple awards and honors, including the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle. He served as Special Advisor Education to the Chief Prosecutor, The International Criminal Court, The Hague, The Netherlands.
During his tenure as the UCLA Wasserman Dean, Dr. Suárez-Orozco raised over $120 million toward the UCLA Campaign (or approximately 170% of the Chancellor's Goal for GSE&IS a year ahead of schedule.) At Harvard, he served as the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education, co-founder and co-director of the Harvard Immigration Project, and founding member of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Executive Committee. At NYU, he served as the inaugural Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education. He has held fellowships at Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. He has been a Visiting Professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS, Paris), the University of Barcelona, the Catholic University of Leuven and has lectured at the German Foreign Office, the Mexican Foreign Office, the Spanish Foreign Office, The Vatican, US Congress, the UN, the American Academy in Berlin, World Economic Forum, and multiple other global venues.
In January 2018, His Holiness Pope Francis appointed Suárez-Orozco to the Executive Council of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and on July 4, 2018, the Carnegie Corporation of New York named him a “Great Immigrant / Great American.”
An immigrant from Argentina, Dr. Suárez-Orozco is a product of California’s public education system. He studied in community college and at the University of California Berkeley, where he received his AB, MA, and PhD (anthropology) in 1986.