Education Policy Speaker Series

Dr. Raquel Rall​
Assistant Professor – University of Carolina, Riverside

Raquel M. Rall is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at UC Riverside. Before her appointment at UCR, she was a UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Research Professor at the University of Southern California (USC). She has a Ph.D. in urban education policy from the University of Southern California and degrees in Human Biology and African and African American Studies from Stanford University. Her research centers postsecondary leadership and governance. Of particular interest to Rall is research that helps further illuminate the centrality of concepts like equity, diversity, and inclusion to postsecondary decision-making. With her research, teaching, and service, Rall centers equity-mindedness to push issues of leadership and decision-making from the periphery to the core to better understand how the decisions and decision-makers impact outcomes in higher education. At UCR she teaches courses like Critical Issues in Higher Education, Higher Education Governance, Black Brilliance Matters, and Organization and Administration. At the system level, she serves on the UC Black Administrator’s Council and is the inaugural convener for the UC Online Advisory Council. She is the first Black woman to be tenured in and is the first Black faculty chair of the School of Education.

Rall has presented her work at national conferences such as the Association for the Study of Higher Education, American Educational Research Association, American Council of Education, and Association of Governing Boards. Her research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the College Futures Foundation, and the Gates Foundation and featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. She has published in academic journals such as the Journal of Negro Education, Teachers College Record, Harvard Educational Review, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, and the Journal of Higher Education. In the community, Rall serves as a member of the Black Community Council at Stanford University, board member for the Council of African American Parents (CAAP), executive board member for the PTA, and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.