Liliana M. Garces

Dr. Liliana M. Garces serves as the Vice President of Research and Public Impact at the Alliance for Higher Education. She leads research-driven strategies and public engagement efforts that advance higher education’s vital role in a multiracial democracy. A nationally recognized scholar, she brings more than two decades of experience advancing social justice through research, policy engagement, and civil rights advocacy. Her foundation‑supported and award‑winning research examines how law and education systems shape opportunity in higher education, informing national policy debates and multiple landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases. Featured in major media outlets, including The New York Times and National Public Radio, Garces has published widely in leading education and law journals and co-edited Racial Equity on College Campuses (2022), School Integration Matters (2016), and Affirmative Action and Racial Equity (2015).

She is an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Fellow and received AERA’s Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award and the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s (ASHE) Early Career Award and Excellence in Public Policy Higher Education Award for her research. Over the course of her career, Garces has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Pennsylvania State University, and George Washington University. Prior to her work in academia, she was a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the Legal Aid Society in D.C., and a judicial law clerk in federal district court. 

Garces earned her doctorate from Harvard University, J.D. from the University of Southern California Law School, and B.A. from Brown University.