Mark Lopez is Associate Director of the Pew Hispanic Center. He formerly served as Research Director at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) and a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. Lopez received his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 1996. He specializes in labor economics, civic engagement, voting behavior, and the economics of education. Through his work at CIRLCE, he has studied young people's electoral participation, the civic engagement of immigrants, young people's views of the first amendment, and the link between college attendance and civic engagement. In other research work, Lopez has studied the earnings differential between U.S. born Hispanic faculty and other faculty, the impact of bilingual education programs on long-term student achievement, the impacts of vocational education on student achievement, estimating the returns to speaking a second language, and the neighborhood effects of immigrants on the educational achievement of natives.

Lopez joined the faculty at the School of Public Policy in 1995 and joined CIRCLE in 2001. He currently teaches courses in microeconomics and statistics at the University of Maryland. Recently, he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award by the School. He has also worked closely with the development and implementation of the School's Maryland Leadership Institute (MLI), a summer program for students who are interested in pursuing a degree in public policy. He currently serves as faculty chair of MLI. Lopez also serves as the Second Vice President of the American Society of Hispanic Economists, and as a member of the American Economic Association's Committee on the Status of Minorities in the Economics Profession.