About
Dr. Araceli Feliz is an Associate Professor and the Associate Director of the Doctorate in Educational Leadership Program at Sacramento State. She is a bilingual TK-12 through Higher Education leader/educator with 30 years of experience. Her research centers on culturally responsive leadership and equity for multilingual learners and other marginalized communities, including the impact of organizational culture and climate on the recruitment, retention, and professional advancement of Latina educational leaders.
Dr. Feliz is a CO-PI on a cross-institutional research team that was awarded the 2026 Spencer Foundation Transformative Research Grant and a 2023 Spencer Foundation Vision Grant for their research project, Extending Dual Language Programs to Overcome Inequities: Developing a Roadmap for California High Schools. This is a $3.5 million, five-year grant that will support the team in studying and developing dual language models to extend dual language programs through high school. As the Administrative Leadership lead for the project, she co-designs professional learning for and with site and district leaders, leads a subcommittee on DL leadership, and guides data strategies for administrator preparation.
Dr. Feliz's most recent publication, titled Latinas in educational leadership: A collection of counterstories from scholar practitioners (Feliz & Buitrago, 2026), is currently available as a preliminary edition classroom testing text and will be released as a first edition in Spring of 2027.