Office: ELABS 272
Email: jose.rodriguez@utrgv.edu
Profile

José Antonio Rodríguez, assistant professor in the Creative Writing Program, is the author of the memoir House Built on Ashes and the poetry collections The Shallow End of Sleep and Backlit Hour. His work has appeared in various journals and magazines, including The New Yorker, The New Republic, POETRY, and The Texas Observer. He holds a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from Binghamton University and is a member of the national writing collectives CantoMundo and Macondo Writers’ Workshop.

Dr. Agbese joined the department of communication at the University of Texas Pan American in the fall of 2006 after two years at Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I.

She received her doctorate in communication studies, with an emphasis in mass communication and intercultural communication (and African history and politics) from Bowling Green State University in 2004. Prior to that, she received her master’s, also in communication studies, from the University of Northern Iowa and a B.Sc. honors in mass communication from the University of Lagos, Nigeria.

She teaches courses in communication studies and mass communication. She also taught communication and social change at Royal Roads University in Canada.

Her research interests include Nigerian media history, African media and politics, global mass media, and Nigerian women and the media. She has worked in different capacities in public relations, journalism and social organizations in Nigeria and the United States.

Named the first Latina to serve as president of a college or university in the United States in 1986, Dr. García spearheaded the creation of The University of Texas at Brownsville and then served as its president for 22 years graduating over 40,000 students and leading the design and establishment of the Brownsville campus. In 2011, she helped lead an effort to envision a new 21st Century University model that eventually consolidated two UT universities, established a medical school, and created The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her life’s work has been focused on expanding higher education opportunities for the people of the Rio Grande Valley. In Washington D.C., she has served on the Clinton and Obama presidential transition teams, chaired the Advisory Committee to Congress on Financial Aid and in 2021, served on the panel to select White House Fellows under President Biden. After the election of President Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid, she was selected to work in South Africa to help integrate higher education. She has served on the boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. In 2009, Time magazine named her one of the Top 10 College Presidents in the US and in 2014 she was recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. She has received honorary doctorates from Notre Dame, Brown, Smith, and Princeton. She currently serves on the board for the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies at UT Austin, Audubon Texas, and Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. Annually, she lectures at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education IEM and with HACU – Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities Leadership Academy. She is currently working with Texas 2036, a group of Texans studying how best to shape our future in Texas across seven core state policy areas. On campus, she teaches public speaking to students in the Math & Science Academy and courses in organizational communication and Latinas in Leadership focusing on the key communication skills needed for next generation leaders. On July 7th of 2022, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe R. Biden for “transforming her hometown University of Texas Brownsville into a center of excellence for countless of students who were inspired by her example. A trailblazer and mentor, Dr. García is considered one of our Nation’s top university administrators who understands the power of education as the great equalizer in America.” Areas of expertise include Language, Leadership, Latinas, Advocacy, and Higher Education Leadership. 

Office: Edinburg, ELABN 332
Email: lucas.espinoza01@utrgv.edu
Profile

Lucas Enrique Espinoza's areas of expertise are in Social Organization/Disorganization, Women’s/Gender/Sexuality Studies, Mexican American Studies/Chican@ Studies/Border Studies, & Social Science Research Methodology. His research posits Critical Race with culture and identity; Latin@ disparities, and social justice rights/issues. His activism in and outside of the classroom are framed in a Feminist/Social Justice/Critical Race methodology and centered in service learning issues around domestic/intimate partner violence.

Office: Edinburg, ELABN 311
Email: rosalva.resendiz@utrgv.edu
Profile

Rosalva Resendiz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice. Her work engages Critical Chicana Feminism with a focus on “intersectionality” and identity politics, considering colonialism, decolonialism and postcolonialism. Her activism and research intersects Border Studies/Chicana Feminism/Social Justice/Critical Criminology. She is researching and has published on Corridos and Soldaderas as well as indigenous resistance and injustice on the border.

Originally from Juarez/El Paso, Zavala received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at Texas Tech University, specializing in Language, Diversity, and Literacy Studies with a concentration in Bilingual Education, ESL. In addition, she earned a Women's and Gender Studies Certificate. Her research relates to the intersection of language, teaching and learning, diversity and multiculturalism, equity and social justice. As a spiritual activist and scholar, she incorporates pedagogies of transformation fostering critical thinking, reflecting identity perspectives, sociocultural context, and critical consciousness. She is a lecturer at the College of Education and Integration P-16 and teaches Intercultural Context, Bilingual and Literacy courses. She has experience teaching in higher education, K-12 public and private schools, and community settings courses in Spanish, Women's, and Gender courses and Teaching Preparation.

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 345
Email: mayra.avila@utrgv.edu
Profile

Dr. Mayra Avila research focuses on women and labor in Mexico, Brazil, and Peru. Dr. Avila utilizes oral histories in her work to provide a personal account of the female experience. Her manuscript El Luto de la Pena Negra: Women, Men and Labor During the Bracero Program, 1943-1964 is currently under review.

Originally from El Paso, Texas, Dr. Carolina Monsivais is a historian and a poet who joined the history department as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2023. Monsivais is a graduate of New Mexico State University (MFA) and the University of Texas at El Paso (PhD).

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 347C
Email: megan.birk@utrgv.edu
Profile

Megan Birk's research and teaching interests focus on American history, especially rural and agricultural history, the Progressive Era, children's history, social welfare history. In 2015, she published her monograph Fostering on the Farm: Placing Out Dependent Children in the Rural Midwest, 1865-1920 with the University of Illinois Press. At UTRGV, she regularly teaches classes on "Family and Childhood in the US" as well as on American food history.

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 346A
E-mail: friederike.bruehoefener@utrgv.edu
Profile

Dr. Brühöfener is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at UTRGV. Her research focuses on post-1945 German new military, gender, and cultural history, as well as the history of sexuality and social movements. Most recently, she co-edited, with Drs. Karen Hagemann and Donna Harsch, the volume Gendering Post-1945 German History: Entanglements (Berghahn Books, 2019). At UTRGV, Dr. Brühöfener teaches classes in European and German women's, gender, cultural, social, and political history.

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 347A
Email: brent.campney@utrgv.edu
Profile

Brent Campney is a historian whose scholarship focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth century U.S. Midwest. His books, This Is Not Dixie: Racist Violence in Kansas, 1861-1927 (2015) and Hostile Heartland: Racism, Repression, and Resistance (2019) investigate racial, class, gender, and sexual relations in the American Midwest between the 1830s and the 1940s. Hostile Heartland also develops a new methodology for investigating resistance among black families in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 347B
Email: linda.english@utrgv.edu
Profile

Linda English is an Associate Professor of U.S., American West, and Texas history. Her research and publications focus primarily on race, class, and gender during the late nineteenth century, specifically Texas and Indian Territory. In 2013, the University of Oklahoma Press published her book, By All Accounts: General Stores and Community Life in Texas and Indian Territory. Her current research examines the “Runaway Scrape” and other aspects of the Texas Revolution through the lens of gender.

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 347
Email:  john.goins@utrgv.edu
Profile

John Goins' teaching and research interests include: Cold War popular culture, the history of social movement organizations, America in the 1960's and 1970's, minority studies, LGBT history and Queer Theory, as well as studies in gender and sexuality. He is currently working on turning his dissertation into a book manuscript, entitled “Confronting Itself: The AIDS Crisis and the LGBT Community in Houston.”

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 343B
Email: amy.hay@utrgv.edu
Profile

Amy Hay's areas of research and teaching specialization include 20th-century American history, American women’s and gender history, and medical and environmental history. She has published on the Love Canal in the Journal of Women’s History and Environmental History. Her current book manuscript uses Agent Orange as a lens to investigate the use of herbicides as a means of international and domestic Cold War environmental containment. Dr. Hay also serves as the GWSP's social media expert.

Office: Brownsville, MO M1.130A
Email: nilanjana.paul@utrgv.edu
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Nilanjana Paul is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History. Her research focuses on colonialism, education, and gender in India. She is working on revising her manuscript, which studies the spread of education among Muslims and women in Colonial Bengal in the twentieth century. She has the experience of working with UN women and currently teaching the course Women in History, which examines women's position in the Global South.

Office: ELABS 356
Email: jamie.starling@utrgv.edu
Profile

Jamie Starling is a historian of the Spanish colonial period and the nineteenth-century U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He recently published two articles that center on women in the borderlands during the early years of Mexican Independence in The Latin Americanist and the Journal of the Southwest. He teaches courses on Borderlands, Mexican American, United States, and Texas history and is active in community history in the Rio Grande Valley.

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 263
Email: marisa.knox@utrgv.edu
Profile

Marisa Palacios Knox's research focuses on nineteenth-century British literature, exploring interests in gender, the history of reading, and imperialism. Her monograph, V ictorian Women and Wayward Reading: Crises of Identification , has just been published by Cambridge University Press. Her articles have also appeared in Victorian Poetry, Literature Compass, and Nineteenth-Century Literature.

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 269
Email: caroline.miles@utrgv.edu
Profile

Caroline Miles is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies. Her work focuses on women's literature and gender studies as well as American and Southern literature, especially William Faulkner. In addition to conducting active research, Caroline Miles is a dedicated teacher. In 2012, she received the Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award (UT System).

Office: Brownsville, BSABH 2.114
Email:noreen.rivera@utrgv.edu
Profile

Diana Noreen Rivera is an Assistant Professor. She received her Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico in English. Her research is in 19th and 20th century literatures and cultures of the U.S. Southwest, early Mexican-American literature and Chicana/o contemporary literature. Her work examines the intersections of race, gender, economics, transnationalism, and cartography. She has published essays and articles in Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, the Journal of the American Studies Association of Texas, and Chicana/Latina Studies. Her current projects investigate the socio-poetics of place and community in natural disaster corridos and the Cold War-era writings of Américo Paredes.

Office: ELABS 203
Phone: (956) 665-3421
Email: linda.belau@utrgv.edu
Profile

Dr. Linda Belau is a Professor in the Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature (Program in Philosophy, Literature and Criticism), MA in Philosophy, and MA in English from Binghamton University. Dr. Belau is a recipient of both the UT Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and the University Excellence in Online Teaching Award. Dr. Belau recently published a book, Horror Television in the Age of Consumption: Binging on Fear, with Routledge (2018), as well as the following film-related articles: “Wounds of the Past: Andrei Tarkovsky and the Melancholic Imagination” in The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky (2019), and “Film as Autobiographical Act: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Oedipus” in Memory Reimagined in World Cinema (2018).

Office: SABH 2.412B
Email: alejandra.ramirez@utrgv.edu

Alejandra I. Ramírez is an assistant professor in the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies. She holds a PhD in rhetoric and a minor in Mexican American Studies. Ramírez’s research examines how ancient, traditional knowledge, shapes our lived realities––both how mythos, icons, and arts are used to constrain institutional access and social imaginations, and how those structurally marginalized reappropriate mythos, icons, and arts to critique and renarrativize their conditions of their lives. Ramírez’s project, Mundos, Murallas, Murales: Muralism and the Global Border Industrial Complex is a phenomenological critique of how border wall murals reveal the interconnected histories and affects of borders across time and place. Informed by Chicana, Mexicana-Indigena mythology, theory, and arts, Ramírez's critical and intuitive scholarship has been published in the journals: Understanding and Dismantling Privilege; Present Tense; and Constellations journals; as well as in the books: Decolonial Conversations in Posthuman and New Material Rhetorics; Nuestra America: Latinx Perspectives on Writing, Rhetorics, and Literacies; and Amplified Voices Intersecting Identities: First-Generation PhDs Navigating Institutional Power. Her edited book, Transnational Feminist Art Pedagogies for Decolonization is under contract with Routledge.

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 342
Email: mariana.alessandri@utrgv.edu
Profile

Mariana Alessandri is an assistant professor of philosophy, Mexican-American Studies faculty affiliate, and Gender and Women’s studies faculty affiliate. She teaches existentialism, religious studies, and is especially interested in the RGV born, Pan-American-University-graduated, queer, self-titled “Feministvisionaryspiritualactivist poet-philosopher fiction writer” Gloria Anzaldua, as well as other women-of-color feminists.

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 357
Email: cynthia.paccacerqua@utrgv.edu
Profile

Cynthia Paccacerqua's areas of expertise include Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy, Feminist Epistemology, Chicana/Latina/Women of Color Feminist Philosophy, Latin American Philosophy, as well asModern and 20th C Continental Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, and Latino-a/Latin American Studies. Most recently, she co-authored (with Stephanie Alvarez) “De conciencia mestiza a conocimiento. La evolución teorética fronteriza chicana de Gloria Anzaldúa" in Noticias del diluvio: Textos latinoamericanos de las últimas décadas.

Brad Warfield is a Lecturer in Philosophy and a Gender and Women’s Studies Program faculty affiliate with wide-ranging interests. His research interests lie in 20^th-century Continental Philosophy, Normative Ethics, Philosophy of Technology, and Philosophy of the Self. He enjoys teaching courses in the following areas: Race, Class, and Sexuality; Existentialism and Phenomenology; Africana Philosophy; Applied Ethics; Philosophy of the Self; and the Philosophy of Love and Sex. His philosophical approach is informed most directly by existentialist philosophy, feminist philosophy, and virtue ethics.

Office: Edinburg, ELABS 363
Email: cory.wimberly@utrgv.edu
Profile

Cory Wimberly's work focuses on social and political philosophy, as well as media relations and propaganda. He recently published an article “The Job of Creating Desire: Propaganda as an Apparatus of Government and Subjectification" in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. At UTRGV, he teaches a variety of interesting topics including Feminist theories, Chicana Feminism, Continental Philosophy, and Critical Thinking.

Office: Edinburg, ELABN 222
Email: carla.angulopasel@utrgv.edu
Phone: (956) 665-8097
Profile

Dr. Carla Angulo-Pasel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science. She holds a Ph.D. in Global Governance from Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. Her research critically examines the intersections of border security, human rights, and gender. Specifically, she focuses on how borders, in their many manifestations, impact the journeys of women who try to migrate to the United States through Mexico, and critically assesses how the national security discourse surrounding irregular migration is used to justify human rights abuses of migrant women.

Office: ELABN 204A
Email: william.sokoloff@utrgv.edu
Profile

William W. Sokoloff is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. In his book Confrontational Citizenship: Reflections on Hatred, Rage, Revolution and Revolt (SUNY 2017), he defends confrontational modes of citizenship (e.g., protest) because they increase the accountability of a regime to the people, increase the legitimacy of regimes, lead to improvements in a political order and serve as a valuable means to vent popular frustration. His second book project is Political Science Pedagogy: A Critical, Radical, and Utopian Perspective (Palgrave, 2020). It brings together innovative work on radical pedagogy, critical race theory, and feminism and grinds this work up against some of the more traditional perspectives on political science pedagogy to open new vistas for thought and action. His current book project explores the intersections between queer theory, radical Chicanx poetry, autoethnography and critical race theory.

Dr. Sarah Perez specializes in Racial and Ethnic politics specifically, and is interested in American Politics more broadly as well as Political Theory. Dr. Perez received a doctorate degree from Western Michigan University in 2017, and teaches political science courses. Dr. Perez has published in the Journal of Political Science Education.

Office: ELABN 361
Email: ruby.charak@utrgv.edu
Profile

Dr. Ruby Charak (Ph.D. in Clinical and Developmental Psychology, VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Science and Director of the Adversities in Childhood and Trauma Studies Lab (ACT Lab; http://www.utrgv.edu/actlab/) at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg since 2016. Before this she served as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on a NICHD/NIH grant on sexual revictimization in young women. She has taught courses on clinical and developmental psychology in India and in the United States. Her research interests pertain to childhood adversities, including, child abuse and neglect, family violence, sexual victimization in young adults, and posttraumatic stress disorder, and often uses structural equation modeling as a statistical tool in her research work. She has worked on sample-populations from the US, the Netherlands, Denmark, Northern Ireland, India, and Burundi (Africa). She currently serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Traumatic Stress, Child Abuse and Neglect, Child Abuse Review, and European Journal of Psychotraumatology.

Office: Edinburg, SBSC 369
Email: qing.zeng@utrgv.edu

Qing Zeng’s teaching and research interests include Developmental Psychology: Infancy-to-Adolescence/Lifespan, Cultural Psychology and Psychology of Gender; cultural identity development in children of immigrant families, and socialization and gender role formation. She published and presented on topics of parenting and gender identity development, attitudes to reproductive rights & psychological effects of abortion, and ambivalent sexism and sexual harassment recognition.

Office: EBABL 1.205
Email: christen.garcia@utrgv.edu

Originally from the San Diego/Tijuana borderlands, García’s visual and written work is informed by Latina/x, Chicana/x, and borderlands theories. García is co-founder of the Nationwide Museum Mascot Project (NWMMP). Examining the borders that exist between the public and art institutions, NWMMP has performed at over 40 museums and art venues in the US, Latin America, and Europe. For six years, she worked for internationally known video artist Bill Viola and collaborated with the artist’s galleries in New York, London, and Seoul. García has published in peer-reviewed journals including: Art Education, The Drama Review, and Visual Arts Research. She has over 15 years of experience teaching in university, K-12, and community settings. García received her PhD in Art Education at Penn State. She earned an MFA in Sculpture/4D from California State University, Long Beach. She is Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

DM Witman is a transdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of environmental disruption and the human relationship to place in the Age of the Anthropocene. Her creative practice is deeply rooted within the realm of the effects of humans on this world using photographic materials, video, and installation. DM is affiliated with Klompching Gallery, NY and Cove Street Arts, Portland. Recent interviews and publications include The Guardian, BBC Culture, WIRED, Boston Globe, and Art New England. She actively exhibits her work and has been recognized with grants from the Maine Arts Commission, The Kindling Fund (a regractor for the Warhol Foundation), The John Anson Kittredge Fund, and the Puffin Foundation.

Office: Brownsville, Main 1.436
Email: amie.bostic@utrgv.edu
Profile

Amie Bostic is an Assistant Professor of Sociology. Her research has a cross-national focus on the role of the state, namely the welfare state, in perpetuating and alleviating inequalities including gender inequality. Specific points of interest include single mother poverty, the gender division of labor in the household, women's labor force participation, and public opinion. She teaches the Sociology of Gender.

Leticia Nevárez Zavala is a graduate from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in sociology, with both bachelor's and master's degrees. Currently, she is pursuing her Ph.D. in gender diversity studies as well. Leticia is an activist and consultant for gender policy and political equality for the United Nations while advocating for equity amongst marginalized groups. Leticia currently works as a lecturer at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and South Texas Community College.

Office: Edinburg, SBSC 351
Email: servando.hinojosa@utrgv.edu
Profile

Servando Hinojosa is an Associate Professor of Anthropology. His research focuses on Maya Culture, Mesoamerica, and folk medicine. He recently published In this Body: Kaqchikel Maya and the Grounding of Spirit with the University of New Mexico Press in 2015. He teaches classes on cultural anthropology and Mexican American folk medicine.

Office: Edinburg, ELABN 329
Email:  milena.melotijerina@utrgv.edu

Milena A. Melo is a broadly trained cultural and medical anthropologist whose work focuses on immigration, healthcare inequalities, the U.S-Mexico borderlands, citizenship, and public policy. Motivated by her own experience as a DACA recipient and undocumented immigrant, Dr. Melo is committed to conducting research that reduces barriers to healthcare, confronts social inequality, and combats the disenfranchisement faced by marginalized populations in the United States. Dr. Melo graduated with her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2017. She is currently a tenure-track assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Office: Edinburg, ELABN 330
Email: rosalynn.vega@utrgv.edu
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Rosalynn A. Vega (PhD, UC Berkeley & San Francisco, 2016) is an Assistant Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her research and teaching interests include: commodification of culture, racialization, medical tourism, citizenship, and reproduction. Her recent publications include the study No Alternative: Childbirth, Citizenship, and Indigenous Culture in Mexico, which was published by the University of Texas Press in 2018.

Office: Edinburg, ELABN 350

Email: arlett.lomeli@utrgv.edu

Profile

Arlett Lomelí is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology. Her research encompasses border studies topics with a focus on the intersections of race, gender, criminology, and disasters. Dr. Lomelí’s work can be found in journals such as Social Currents, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, American Journal of Criminal Justice, and International Journal of Emergency Management.

Office: Brownsville, BSABH 234
Email: erika.rendonramos@utrgv.edu

Dr. Erika Rendon-Ramos is an Assistant Professor in the Mexican American Studies Academic Program. Dr. Rendon-Ramos received her PhD from Rice University in History. Her scholarship addresses Mexican immigration, bi-culturalism, and transnationalism through the lived-experiences of Mexican migrants, making oral history an integral component in her methodology. She has presented her scholarship both nationally and internationally.

Office: Edinburg, ELAB N 301 and CMAS EDUC 2.216B
Email: cinthya.saavedra@utrgv.edu
Profile

Cinthya M. Saavedra is Associate Professor and Academic Program Director of Mexican American Studies. She received her PhD from Texas A&M University in Curriculum and Instruction. Her work has centered and advanced Chicana/Latina feminist epistemology and methodologies in educational research. Her scholarship addresses immigrant, transnational and bilingual education and experiences as well as the methodologies of testimonio, pláticas and critical reflexivity. She has co-edited two special issues on Chicana/Latina pedagogies and methodologies in the Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies. Her scholarship can be found in Review of Research in Education, Equity & Excellence in Education, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Language Arts, and TESOL Quarterly.

Office: CEBL 3112
Email: eugenia.curet@utrgv.edu

Dr. Eugenia Curet is the Assistant Dean of Student for Support, Counseling and Wellness Services for the medical students at the UTRGV School of Medicine. She holds a Master Degree in Social Work with specialization in psychiatric social work from the New York University Graduate School of Social Work, and a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies focusing in Public Health & Substance Abuse from The Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr. Curet has been a presenter at numerous national and international conferences on topics ranging from mental health, suicide prevention, HIV, substance abuse and co-morbidity of Hepatitis C and substance abuse as well as the provision of culturally sensitive delivery of treatment services. Dr. Curet has been the recipient of two SAMHSA Suicide Prevention grants (2011 and 2017) and was awarded the 2013 Leadership on University Campuses and in the Community Award by the Texas Suicide Prevention Council, (April 1, 2013). An important area of interest for Dr. Curet is the integration of physical and mental health wellness services that embrace the individual’s body, mind and spiritual needs.

Office: EPACB 1.117
Email: andres.amado@utrgv.edu
Profile

Dr. Andrés R. Amado is an Assistant Professor in the School of Music. He holds a Ph.D. in music from the University of Texas at Austin. At UTRGV, he teaches courses in music history, world music cultures, research methods, and ethnomusicology. His research focuses on the music of Latin America, particularly Guatemala, and U.S.-Latinx, exploring intersections of race and ethnicity, musical nationalism, cosmopolitanism, transnationalism, as well as gender and sexuality. He has published book chapters, articles, encyclopedic entries as author, co-author, and translator in Spanish and English, and has presented research at numerous conferences of musicology, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, and Latin American studies. His recent publications include “Benedicto Sáenz’ Libera Me and the Silence of Guatemalan Nineteenth-Century Choral Music” (2018).

Priscilla Flores is an experienced Bilingual Lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in the Higher Education industry, primarily with first-gen and first-year students. She serves in a Hispanic Serving Institution and is skilled in Gender and Women Studies, Mexican-American Studies, and Communication Studies. Professor Flores is committed to a diversity of thought, culture, background, life experiences, and perspectives and strives to create a truly inclusive classroom. She is a DREAM Zone Advocate UTRGV Ally. Her Pronouns are she/her/ella