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
rzambran@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 in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Director of the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity at the University of Maryland College Park. She also has a secondary appointment as Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Medicine. As a nationally and internationally recognized social scientist, Dr. Zambrana has published widely on health inequity in her major research concentrations: race/ethnic population groups, women’s health, maternal and child health, socioeconomic health disparities, and life course impacts on health and mental health outcomes of traditionally and historically underrepresented minorities. Her interdisciplinary work contributes to a deeper understanding of the multiple social and economic determinants of health, including discrimination, that intersect at the systems level to produce long-term systemic barriers to health care access among economically disadvantaged groups.
She is currently focusing on the intersection of higher education institutional environments and its impact on health outcomes of faculty. Her most recent work focused on underrepresented early career scholars and the institutional factors associated with academic success and work stress at U.S. research institutional environments. Her current work, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, examines the perceptions of senior leadership and constructs of healthy higher education institutions.
Dr. Zambrana has authored/coauthored 13 books and over 160 published articles, reviews, and reports. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. A few of the most recent include: the APHA Lyndon Haviland Public Health Mentoring Award 2021; the Distinguished Research Fellow at the Latino Research Institute University of Texas, Austin 2021-2022; elected member of the National Academy of Medicine 2022; John P. McGovern Endowed Annual Award in Lectureship in Family, Health and Human Values 2023; and Distinguished Research Fellow of Health and Higher Education Studies at Ohio State University, Kirwan Institute for Race and Social Justice 2025.
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.
