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MAS Affiliates

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Dr. Martiza De La Trinidad
Program Coordinator
Mexican American Studies
ELABN 229
Email: maritza.delatrinidad@utrgv.edu
Email: mas@utrgv.edu
Phone: 956 665 2545

MAS Faculty and Staff

Dr. Stephanie Alvarez

MAS Graduate Program Coodinator
Email: stephanie.alvarez@utrgv.edu
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Dr. Stephanie Alvarez

Stephanie Alvarez, Associate Professor of Mexican American Studies, earned her PhD in Spanish from the University of Oklahoma. She is the founding director of the Mexican American Studies program (2009-2013) & Center for Mexican American STudies (2011-2013) at UTPA (now UTRGV). She is the recipient of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education Outstanding Latina/o Faculty Award (2011), the University of Texas Board of Regent's Outstanding Teaching Award (2009), and the 2015 Outstanding Master's Universities and Colleges Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She is the co-editor with William Luis of The AmeRícan Poet: Essays on the Work of Tato Laviera (2014). Her research intersects in the areas of Latin@ identity, language, literature, culture, education and empowerment and has appeared in various edited volumes and journals such as Hispania, Journal of Latinos and Education and CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, among others. Together with Tato Laviera, Edna Ochoa and José Martínez she founded Cosecha Voices, a program that provides migrant farmworker youth the opportunity to document and share their testimonios.

MAS Graduate Program Coodinator
Mexican American Studies
Email: stephanie.alvarez@utrgv.edu
Edinburg

Dr. Maritza De La Trinidad

Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of Mexican American Studies & Undergraduate Coordinator
Phone: 956-665-3236
Email: maritza.delatrinidad@utrgv.edu
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Dr. Maritza De La Trinidad

Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of Mexican American Studies & Undergraduate Coordinator
Email: maritza.delatrinidad@utrgv.edu

Phone: 956-665-3236

Dr. Cathryn Merla-Watson

Associate Professor of Mexican American Studies & Adjunct Faculty, Mexican American Studies
Phone: (956) 665-3422
Email: cathryn.merlawatson@utrgv.edu
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Dr. Cathryn Merla-Watson

Dr. Cathryn Merla-Watson is an Associate Professor of Mexican American Studies and the Co-Director of Gender and Women's Studies. Dr. Merla-Watson earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with concentrations in Geography and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. Dr. Merla-Watson's teaching and research interests include Chicana and Latina feminisms, queer of color theories, affect theory, Latinx literary and cultural studies, Latinx speculative aesthetics, and Latinx geographies. She has published articles in Aztlán and MELUS as well as chapters in edited collections, including The Un/Making of Latina/o Citizenship; Culture, Politics, and Aesthetics (2014); Research Justice: Methodologies for Social Change (2015); and Latina Outsiders: Remaking Latina Identity (2019). She published with B.V. Olguín Altermundos: Latin@ Speculative Literature, Film, and Popular Culture (2017), the first edited collection to coalesce scholarship theorizing Latinx speculative aesthetics. Altermundos won The Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award (2018).

Associate Professor of Mexican American Studies & Adjunct Faculty, Mexican American Studies
Mexican American Studies
Email: cathryn.merlawatson@utrgv.edu
EEDUC 1628
Phone: (956) 665-3422

Dr. Erika Rendon-Ramos

Assistant Professor of Mexican American Studies
Email: erika.rendonramos@utrgv.edu
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Dr. Erika Rendon-Ramos

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. Erika has presented her scholarship both nationally and internationally. Her publications can be found in the Journal of Borderlands Studies and Journal of South Texas.

Assistant Professor of Mexican American Studies
Email: erika.rendonramos@utrgv.edu

Dr. Cinthya M. Saavedra

Professor of Mexican American Studies & Associate Dean of Community Engagement
Phone: (956) 665-3381
Email: cinthya.saavedra@utrgv.edu
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Dr. Cinthya M. Saavedra

Cinthya is Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Programs & Community Engagement. Her research centers Chicana/Latina feminist epistemology in the investigation of emergent bilingual, immigrant, and borderland experiences as well as spirituality and critical research methodologies. Her work can be found most recently in journals such as Equity & Excellence in Education, Review of Research in Education, Language Arts, and Research on Teaching English.

Professor of Mexican American Studies & Associate Dean of Community Engagement
Mexican American Studies
Email: cinthya.saavedra@utrgv.edu
ELABS 207
Phone: (956) 665-3381

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Mexican American Studies Academic Program School of Interdisciplinary Programs and Community Engagement

MAS Faculty and Staff

Dr. Stephanie Alvarez

Dr. Maritza De La Trinidad

Dr. Cathryn Merla-Watson

Dr. Erika Rendon-Ramos

Dr. Cinthya M. Saavedra