Dr. Rebecca Covarrubias is a professor of psychology and director of the Collaborative Research for Equity in Action (CREA) research group at the University of California, Santa Cruz. 

Her interdisciplinary research examines the experiences of students from marginalized backgrounds in educational settings, including how institutions systematically misrecognize their complex and dynamic ways of being and knowing.  She aims to understand the holistic impact of this marginalization, and how groups navigate, make sense of, and resist this marginalization to transform institutional spaces and relationships. Her research leverages identity-conscious frameworks (e.g., servingness, community cultural wealth, culture cycle, politics of belonging) and critical analytic tools (e.g., intersectionality) to interrogate varied forms of structural inequity and to theorize about and document the aspirations, hopes, and desires of marginalized groups. She collaborates with diverse partners (students, staff, faculty) to develop actionable practices to shift the culture of institutions and help students thrive.

A proud first-generation college graduate, Dr. Covarrubias earned her bachelor’s degree in family studies and human development at The University of Arizona, where she was also a Ronald E. McNair Achievement Scholar.  She continued at The University of Arizona to earn a master’s degree and doctorate in social psychology.  After graduating, she taught psychology courses in Orvieto, Italy through the Arizona in Italy Study Abroad Program.  Dr. Covarrubias then became a University Diversity Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow for the Center of the Study of Diversity and the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware.  

She joined the Department of Psychology at UC Santa Cruz in fall 2015.