Maria Avila teaches in the Masters in Social Work program at California State University, Dominguez Hills. She earned an MA in social service administration at University of Chicago, and a PhD in adult and community education at the University of Maynooth, in Ireland. She was an Andrew W. Mellon Teaching Fellow with the Center for Diversity and Democracy, and taught in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity from 2012 to 2014, at the University of Southern California. She was founding director of the Center for Community Based Learning at Occidental College from 2001 to 2011. In her research and publications, she explores using community organizing practices to institutionalize public scholarship, and to transform the culture of higher education.