Kindling the Spark By Josh Duke
Lara Perez-Felkner has had a busy year.
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n March, she became a member of the National Science Foundation’s Quantitative, Computational and Mixed Methods (QCM) Cohort. The prestigious cohort brings in experts from across the nation to help increase the participation of historically underrepresented groups like women and minorities in STEM and data science. Then, just two months later, she was named a Student Experience Research Network (SERN) 2021–2022 midcareer fellow. SERN began in 2015 to provide resources, education and more to enhance the student experience, as well as to identify and promote education policies that improve equity, opening up new opportunities for students. Both honors recognize the exceptional nature of Perez-Felkner’s career, but both mean she will be even busier in the months to come. “It has not been a quiet summer by any means,” she laughs. On top of her planned research projects, she now finds herself meeting with national colleagues each week in trainings, meetings and professional courses that teach her innovative methodologies in quantitative and mixed methods research. Such professional development will undoubtedly help her with her research going forward, but it also means that the summer will hardly be any respite from her busy school year. Yet speaking to Perez-Felkner, you wouldn’t get the sense that she’s tired. If anything, these accolades renew her energy in a career that already excites her. “Even though I’m human and I make mistakes, and there are always times that you can teach better and do more and be a better mentor, I remember there being a spark very early on,” she says. “I still have [that spark] with me on a daily basis. I want to be in a place where things happen—where you can be inspired by students and try to inspire them as well—and be in this place where ideas are a currency and are what’s energizing people for the possibility of making social
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Lara Perez-Felkner
change, innovation and transformative ideas. I think being a part of a university, even if it was in a very idealized way when I was younger, is kind of magical and a really tremendously fulfilling job.” DESTINED TO BE A DOCTOR Perez-Felkner is an associate professor in FSU’s higher education program and has served as a co-chair of the Latinx Faculty and Staff Collective at FSU. She is also a member of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) iChange ASPIRE Alliance Team and a member of the President’s Taskforce for Diversity and Inclusion at FSU. Her research focuses on career and college outcomes for young people, particularly the various social contexts that shape their early professional lives. “There are tons of reasons why folks’ opportunity structures and the stability they have in adulthood—and the possibility to pass on stability and wealth and opportunity to their children—is there for people who go to and complete college. It just isn’t in the same way for people who don’t,” she says. “Once I realized I wanted to study education and the social sciences, I wanted to understand what
