Dr. Liliana M. Garces is Ken McIntyre Professor for Excellence in School Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is currently on leave to serve as the Inaugural Vice President of Research and Public Impact at the Alliance for Higher Education. At the Alliance, 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 NPR, 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. Prior to her work in academia, she was a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the Legal Aid Society in DC, and a judicial law clerk in federal district court for the Honorable John C. Coughenour.  Garces earned her doctorate from Harvard University, juris doctor from the University of Southern California Law School, and bachelor of arts from Brown University.