Maria Elena Torre

María Elena Torre, PhD is the founding director of The Public Science Project at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where she is on the faculties of Critical Social Psychology and Urban Education. A queer mama of a very cool 15 year old, she has written about and been engaged in critical participatory action research nationally and internationally for the last 27 years. She collaborates with communities in neighborhoods, schools, prisons, and community-based organizations designing research to fuel social transformation and structural change. María is coauthor of The Essentials of Critical Participatory Action Research, PAR EntreMundos: A Pedagogy of the Americas, and Echoes of Brown: Youth Documenting and Performing the Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education; and has written extensively about how decolonizing methodologies, radical inclusion, and a praxis of solidarity can inform a participatory public science that supports movements for justice. With the Public Science Project, María leads annual summer CPAR Institutes that bring graduate students, faculty and community workers together, to learn alongside each other, about the history, theory, methods, and ethics of critical participatory action research. She also facilitates CPAR with government agencies as a way to integrate meaningful community participation and leadership and spark transitions from providing services to supporting community self-determination.