Sara Garcia grew up in Santa Paula, California. She has a B.A. in Spanish Literature from San Jose State University and taught at Channel Islands High School in California. In 1976, she accepted a position at California State University Fullerton, in the School of Education and the Title VII Training Resource Center. In 1980, Dr. Garcia received a Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) and applied linguistics from the UCLA English Department. Soon after, in 1981, she completed a Master in Education from the UCLA Graduate School of Education. While there, Professor Garcia was a research associate at the Center for the Study of Evaluation (CSE) and coordinated the Bilingual Credential at the Teacher Education Lab.
Dr. Garcia completed her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology in 1989 at UC-Santa Barbara. She specialized in language development, cognition, and learning theory. She supervised teacher credential candidates, and was a lecturer in the Department of Chicano Studies. In 1991, Dr. Garcia became a faculty member in the Division of Counseling Psychology and Education at Santa Clara University. She directed the Teacher Education program and designed the first Master's degree in Interdisciplinary Education linked to the CLAD credential.
As a Fulbright scholar (2001-2002), Dr. Garcia conducted interdisciplinary action research with school teachers and ecology researchers in the Chihuahuan desert. In 2005, she edited a book based on the results of her Fulbright study, which was published by the Instituto de Ecologia. In 2011, Dr. Garcia was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant to conduct a seminar on research methods and to assess faculty research at the Cundinamarca University in Bogota, Colombia. Professor Garcia’s research is on collaborative scholarship with an emphasis on environmental education, ethics in ecology and cultural theory. For a recent list of Dr. Garcia’s publications, see academia.edu or https://scu.elsevierpure.com/en/persons/sara-s-garcia.