Our History

The Immigrant Student Research Project (ISRP) Lab was established in 2017 by Dr. Kevin Escudero, Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies and an affiliated faculty member in the Sociology Department, Annenberg Institute, and Population Studies and Training Center (PSTC) at Brown University. The Lab’s work extends Dr. Escudero’s previous research on immigrant youth activism by examining immigrant student experiences along the U.S. educational pipeline and into the U.S. workforce.

From 2018-2019, Dr. Escudero and his team fielded a pilot study of immigrant and international law and medical student experiences in the Northeastern United States. This study was funded by grants from the Access Lex Institute and the Association for Institution Research as well as Brown’s Office of the Vice President for Research. In 2020, Dr. Escudero received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to continue building the Lab and field a national study of immigrant graduate and professional degree students’ educational journeys. This study will consist of an online survey followed by an optional virtual interview component.

The son of a Vietnamese/Cambodian refugee mother and Bolivian immigrant father, Dr. Escudero is highly committed to ensuring that the research conducted as part of the ISRP Lab contributes both to the academic literature and improving support systems for immigrant students at higher education institutions today. Along these lines, Dr. Escudero is also deeply invested in training and mentoring students, including immigrant students, in social science research methods and approaches to translating their research into actionable policy recommendations. At Brown, Dr. Escudero is a co-founder and steering committee member for the university’s Migration Studies Initiative. From 2016-2017, he served as Special Advisor to the Provost for Undocumented and DACAmented students, advising students and offering campus-wide workshops and trainings for university administrators on approaches to increase support for members of this student community.