Aida Hurtado

Aida was born in Mexico, and grew up in California's Central Valley. Her family moved to California when she was four years old to work as migrant farm laborers. Hurtado is an influential Mexican-American psychologist who was born in 1950 in the United States to Mexican immigrants, Hurtado has had a long and distinguished career in the field of psychology, advocating for the inclusion of women of color and the promotion of feminist psychology.[2]

Hurtado began her professional career in 1975, when she received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley. She then went on to receive her MA in psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1977 and her PhD in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1982.[3]

Growing up, Hurtado experienced discrimination and marginalization because of her race and socio-economic status. Despite these challenges, she was an excellent student and was encouraged by her teachers to pursue higher education. She attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology in 1972.

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz, Hurtado went on to earn a Master's degree and a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan. Her early research focused on issues related to racial and ethnic identity, stereotypes, and prejudice. She has since become a leading scholar in the areas of intersectionality and the experiences of women of color.

In 1983, Hurtado began teaching at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she has remained until the present day. From 1983 until 1995, she was an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the university, and she was promoted to full professor in 1995. During her tenure, Hurtado has served as the director of the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research, the associate dean of the Social Sciences Division, and the associate dean of the Graduate Division.[3]

Hurtado has published extensively on the topics of feminism, race, and gender, and her work has been featured in numerous books and journals. Her work has also been cited in hundreds of scholarly articles, and she has been featured in numerous documentaries and interviews.[4][5]

In addition to her work as a scholar, Hurtado has also been a major advocate for increased diversity in the field of psychology and has worked to bridge the gap between psychology and social work. She has been honored with numerous awards and honors, including the American Psychological Association Distinguished Contributions to Psychology Award (2015), the University of California, Santa Barbara Faculty Research Lectureship (2017),[6] and the American Psychological Association Presidential Citation (2018).[7]

Today, Hurtado continues to be a major figure in the field of psychology and a major advocate for increased diversity in the field. Her work has greatly contributed to the understanding of the psychological aspects of gender, race, and ethnicity, and her research and advocacy.[2]

Aida Hurtado is a psychologist who made significant contributions to the field of feminist psychology. She contributed to the development of intersectionality (Hurtado & Yee, 1988).[8] This theory has been widely used by researchers from many different disciplines to gain a better understanding of the unique experiences of people of color. Hurtado has also been recognized for her work on educational attainment and success (Hurtado, 2004), and was awarded the American Psychological Association Distinguished Contributions to Psychology Award in 2015 (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2017) and the Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association in 2018 (American Psychological Association, 2018).