Julie J. Park

Julie J. Park is associate professor of education at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research addresses racial equity in higher education, with a focus on the campus racial climate and college admissions. She also studies the complex ways that Asian Americans experience structural advantage and/or disadvantage in the realm of education. Her book Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data (Harvard Education Press, 2018), winner of an AESA Critics Choice Award, tackles misconceptions about how race and diversity work in college admissions and campus life. She is also the author of When Diversity Drops: Race, Religion, and Affirmative Action in Higher Education (Rutgers University Press, 2013), an ethnographic examination of how a campus religious community was affected over time by Proposition 209, California's ban on race-conscious admissions.

She is currently working on a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation examining the impact of test-optional policies and the future of college admissions, with a particular focus on understanding inequality in non-standardized components of college applications. She is also Principal Investigator on the study "Race, Religion, and STEM: Exploring the Intersections for Black Students," funded by the National Science Foundation. Her work has appeared in journals such as the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Higher Education, and the Review of Higher Education. Her commentary has also appeared in venues like the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. She served as a consulting expert in the landmark lawsuit Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard on the side of Harvard. Dr. Park earned her Ph.D. in Education from UCLA (Higher Education and Organizational Change), with a graduate concentration in Asian American Studies, and B.A. at Vanderbilt University (Sociology, English, and Women's Studies).