There is an entire team behind the Academy for Teaching and Learning Excellence: 3 co-directors and 2 graduate students. Find out more about them below.
Co-Directors
Adriana López-Ramírez
(pronouns: she/her/hers)
Co-director since 2024
Adriana López-Ramírez is an associate professor of sociology in the School of Human Inquiry at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She holds a bachelor’s degree in physical anthropology from the National School of Anthropology and History in Mexico City, and both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in sociology with a specialization in demography from Brown University. Since joining the faculty at UA Little Rock in 2009, she has brought her expertise from her previous roles as a research associate at the Mexican Census Bureau and the Mexican Population Council.
Her research interests include population aging, international migration, and families and living arrangements. She teaches courses on social statistics, research methods, family, minority groups, population studies, and introduction to sociology.
Dr. López joined ATLE as a co-director in the fall of 2024, and will complete her term in the spring of 2027.
Contact Dr. López: [email protected]
Laura Barrio-Vilar
(pronouns: she/her/hers)
Co-director since 2025
Dr. Laura Barrio-Vilar (pronouns: she/her/hers) is an associate professor of English in the School of Literary and Performing Arts at UA Little Rock. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English Philology from the University of Santiago de Compostela. She also holds a master’s and a Ph.D. in English, along with a Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Kentucky.
Since joining UA Little Rock in 2011, Dr. Barrio has previously served as an ATLE co-director (2019-2022), won her college’s Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching in 2023, and her college’s Faculty Excellence Award in Public Service in 2017.
Her research and teaching interests include African American literature, Afro-Caribbean literature, postcolonial studies, and gender and women’s studies. Her most popular courses include seminars on Afrofuturism, Migration Literature, Toni Morrison, Neo-Slave Narratives, Postcolonial Literature, and Women in Literature. Dr. Barrio’s research explores how race, gender, and class affect migration patterns and the notion of citizenship in the African Diaspora. Her current research projects explore literature by contemporary Black migrant writers as a form of social justice activism.
Dr. Barrio joined ATLE as a co-director in the fall of 2025, and will complete her three-year term in the spring of 2028.
Contact Dr. Barrio-Vilar at [email protected]
Lindsay Ruhr
(pronouns: she/her/hers)
Co-director since 2026
Lindsay Ruhr is an associate professor of social work at the UA Little Rock. She holds a master’s degree in social work from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. She also holds a master’s degree in public policy administration (MPPA) from the University of Missouri – St. Louis. She earned her Ph.D. in social work from the University of Missouri in 2016 and joined the faculty at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2018. She is a licensed certified social worker (LCSW) in Arkansas.
In 2025, Dr. Ruhr won the university’s Faculty Excellence Award in Public Service.
Her research interests include healthcare access, integrated behavioral health, and program evaluation. She teaches courses on evaluation research, data analysis, and evaluation of clinical social work.
Dr. Ruhr joined ATLE as a co-director in the fall of 2026, and will complete her three-year term in the spring of 2029.
Contact Dr. Ruhr at [email protected]
Graduate Assistants
Jeffrey Ackah-Blay
(he/him)
Begum Marjahan
(she/her)