Abraham P.  DeLeon, Ph.D.
Ricardo Romo Ph.D. Endowed Professorship
The Ricardo Romo Ph.D. Endowed Professorship was established in 2010 by the university in honor of former UTSA President Dr. Ricardo Romo. The academic position is awarded to a faculty member who has demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, and service to undergraduate students enrolled in the Honors College. The professorship is awarded to a new recipient every three years.

Abraham P. DeLeon, Ph.D.

Ricardo Romo Ph.D. Endowed Professorship

Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Abraham DeLeon is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in UTSA’s College of Education & Human Development. His research interests include curriculum theory, cultural studies, utopian scholarship, French social theory, nonhuman animals, archival research, representation, space and place, anarchist theory, and critical pedagogy.

DeLeon has nearly 650 citations to date, and his research has been published in Critical Studies in Education, Equity and Excellence in Education, Theory & Research in Social Education and other notable academic journals. Additionally, he has written numerous chapters in edited, scholarly books and encyclopedia entries dealing with critical pedagogy, teacher unions and anarchist theory.

DeLeon’s professional service includes serving on the executive committee of the American Educational Studies Association and working as an editorial review board member for several top journals in his field. He has also held leadership positions in his academic organization, the American Educational Studies Association.

In 2020, DeLeon was awarded the Outstanding Book Award by the Society of Professors of Education for his 2019 publication, Subjectivities, Identities, and Education after Neoliberalism: Rising from the Rubble. He was the recipient of the 2009 American Educational Studies Association (AESA) Critics Choice Award for Contemporary Anarchist Studies: An Introductory Anthology of Anarchy in the Academy, a co-edited volume published by Routledge Publishers in London. He also received the AESA Critics Choice Award in 2011 for his lead-edited book Critical Theories, Radical Pedagogies and Social Education: New Perspectives for Social Studies Education, co-edited by Wayne Ross from the University of Vancouver, B.C.

DeLeon received a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction and a master’s degree in history from the University of Connecticut. He earned his bachelor’s degree in education from New Mexico State University.