Arce ’26PhD Wins 2026 Antonia Pantoja Award

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Joel Arce ’26PhD, recent doctoral graduate of the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was selected to receive the 2026 Antonia Pantoja Award by the Latino Scholarship Fund of Western Massachusetts. 

“Dr. Arce is among the most inspiring and most talented scholars I have encountered in my academic career,” says Professor Kysa Nygreen, Arce’s doctoral advisor. “Through his use of community-engaged and youth-led collaborative research methods, he seamlessly weaves research, teaching, service, and outreach to advance social and racial justice in education. I know of few scholars with his ability to weave these threads with such effectiveness, authenticity, and integrity.” 

Prior to pursuing his doctorate, Arce taught middle school social studies in the Bronx and worked with nonprofit organizations in New York City focused on project-based learning and college access programming. He continued building on these experiences throughout his doctoral studies at UMass Amherst, engaging in participatory research and scholarship supporting a transformative vision of Western Massachusetts educators and youth, including a multiyear research-and-practice partnership connected to the Holyoke Public Schools Ethnic Studies program. 

A statement from the awards committee reads, “As a first-generation student in higher education and the child of immigrant parents with roots in Ecuador and Puerto Rico, Dr. Arce strongly identifies with working-class Latinx communities as well as other immigrant and communities of color. He has embraced his educational journey and lived experiences as an asset within academic spaces—something he now models for his students as a faculty member and researcher-practitioner.” 

Arce successfully defended his dissertation, “Visioning within (and beyond) a secondary-level ethnic studies program: A site of hope, aspirations, tensions, and critique,” in February. He will be celebrated by the Latino Scholarship Fund of Western Massachusetts at an awards ceremony on June 12.