Ruth Enid Zambrana
Distinguished University Professor, The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Director, Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity
Affiliate Professor, American Studies
Affiliate Faculty, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center
Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity
4111 Susquehanna Hall
301-405-0451rzambran@umd.edu
4117 Susquehanna Hall
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Research Expertise
Educational and Social Inequalities
Equity
Gender
Health
Higher Education
Institutional Discrimination
Intersectionality
Latinx Studies
Race/Ethnicity
Reproductive Health
Reproductive Justice
Sexuality and Reproductive Health Violence
Women
Dr. Zambrana is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland Harriet TubmanDepartment of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Director of the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity and has a secondary appointment as Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Medicine. She is a medical and community sociologist and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Her scholarship applies a critical intersectional lens to structural inequality and racial, Hispanic ethnicity, and gender inequities in population health and higher education trajectories. Dr. Zambrana has published widely on health and racial inequity in her major field concentrations: women’s health, maternal and child health, socioeconomic health disparities and life course impacts on health and mental well-being of historically underrepresented minorities. Her most recent book is Toxic Ivory Tower: The Consequences of Work Stress on the Health of Underrepresented Minority Faculty (2018). She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2011 Julian Samora Distinguished Career Award by the American Sociological Association, Sociology of Latino/as Section, the 2013 American Public Health Association (APHA) Latino Caucus, Founding Member Award for Vision and Leadership, the 2021 APHA Lyndon Haviland Public Health Mentoring Award, and the 2021-22 Distinguished Research Fellow at the Latino Research Institute University of Texas, Austin.
Publications
Toxic Ivory Towers: The Consequences of Work Stress on Underrepresented Minority Faculty
A new book by Ruth Enid Zambrana documents the professional work experiences of underrepresented minority faculty in U.S. higher education.
Author/Lead: Ruth Enid Zambrana
By Ruth Enid Zambrana, professor and interim chair of women’s studies, director of the Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
"Toxic Ivory Towers," seeks to document the professional work experiences of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in U.S. higher education, and simultaneously address the social and economic inequalities in their life course trajectory. Ruth Enid Zambrana finds that despite the changing demographics of the nation, the percentages of Black and Hispanic faculty have increased only slightly, while the percentages obtaining tenure and earning promotion to full professor have remained relatively stagnant. Toxic Ivory Towers is the first book to take a look at the institutional factors impacting the ability of URM faculty to be successful at their jobs, and to flourish in academia. The book captures not only how various dimensions of identity inequality are expressed in the academy and how these social statuses influence the health and well-being of URM faculty, but also how institutional policies and practices can be used to transform the culture of an institution to increase rates of retention and promotion so URM faculty can thrive.
