Victoria DeFrancesco Soto
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Victoria Maria DeFrancesco Soto (born 1978) is an American political scientist and academic administrator.[1] She is dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas.[2] She became the first Latina woman to occupy the position of Dean in a presidential institution.[3] She was previously the assistant dean for civic engagement and a senior lecturer at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.[2] In July 2025, Victoria Maria DeFrancesco Soto joined the Board of Trustees at the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).[4]
She researches immigration, women and politics, political psychology, and campaigns and elections.[2]
Education
She completed a bachelor's degree in political science and Latin American studies at the University of Arizona.[2] She earned a master's and, with the guidance of Dr. John Aldrich and Dr. Paula D. McClain as her doctoral advisors, earned her Ph.D. in political science from the Graduate School of Duke University.[2][7] Her 2007 dissertation was titled, Do Latinos Party All the Time? The Role of Shared Ethnic Group Identity on Political.[5]
