Carolyn Ureña

Dr. Ureña (she/her) is the Associate Dean and Director of Academic Advising in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. As Director, she leads a team of professional advisors and administrative staff committed to supporting student success, and oversees the College’s pre-major advising system, which includes almost 200 faculty and staff advisors. Dr. Ureña joined the College Advising staff in 2020 as an Assistant Dean for Advising and began as Director in 2023.  

She attended Princeton University as a first-generation, limited-income college student, graduating cum laude with an AB in Comparative Literature. She went on to receive her MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park, and her PhD in Comparative Literature from Rutgers. Her academic research examines the clinical, philosophical, and political writings of the revolutionary Black psychiatrist Frantz Fanon to argue that centering the lived experiences of race, disability, and coloniality helps us develop new ways of understanding health and healing.  

In addition to her leadership role, Dr. Ureña teaches a first-year seminar in comparative literature where students explore critical and creative writing by physicians deeply interested in reflecting on the medical encounter alongside intersectional and multi-ethnic narratives of illness and disability. 

She is co-editor of Decolonizing Bodies: Stories of Embodied Resistance, Healing and Liberation, published by Bloomsbury in 2025. Her writing has appeared in Bandung: Journal of the Global South, Disability and the Global South, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, and History of Photography. 

Dr. Ureña is an avid music lover who regularly crowdsources Spotify playlists with her colleagues – an ongoing office tradition that keeps conversations and connections lively. She’s a big fan of Bad Bunny, has recently fallen down a BTS rabbit hole, and enjoys all things sci-fi and horror.