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

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Mexican American Studies Program (MAS)
ELABN 229
Email: mas@utrgv.edu
Phone: 956-665-3381

MAS Affiliates

Mariana Alessandri

Associate Professor: Philosophy
Phone: 956-665-7487
Email: mariana.alessandri@utrgv.edu
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Mariana Alessandri

Mariana Alessandri reads, studies and loves to teach Existentialist and Latin American philosophy and Mexican-American Studies.
Associate Professor: Philosophy
Philosophy
Email: mariana.alessandri@utrgv.edu
ELABS 362
Phone: 956-665-7487

Isela Almaguer

Professor: Bilingual and Literacy Studies
Phone: (956) 665-3630
Email: isela.almaguer@utrgv.edu
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Isela Almaguer

Dr. Isela Almaguer is a Full Professor and Endowed Chair in Education at UTRGV in the Department of Bilingual and Literacy Studies. Her research interests and expertise center on literacy and biliteracy development of English Language Learners and language issues impacting Latino students and the community.  
Professor: Bilingual and Literacy Studies
Email: isela.almaguer@utrgv.edu
EEDUC 2632
Phone: (956) 665-3630

Andres Amado

Associate Professor: Music
Phone: 956-665-2944
Email: andres.amado@utrgv.edu
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Andres Amado

I study relationships between music, race, ethnicity, religion, and politics and teach courses in music history and ethnomusicology.
Associate Professor: Music
Music
Email: andres.amado@utrgv.edu
EPACB 117
Phone: 956-665-2944

Carla Angulo-Pasel

Assistant Professor: Political Science
Email: carla.angulopasel@utrgv.edu
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Carla Angulo-Pasel

Dr. Angulo-Pasel 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 migrants.
Assistant Professor: Political Science
Political Science
Email: carla.angulopasel@utrgv.edu
ELABN 208

Ryan M. Bessett

Assistant Professor: Writing and Language Studies
Email: ryan.bessett@utrgv.edu
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Ryan M. Bessett

Ryan Bessett’s major research interests center around language variation and change, Spanish in contact, bilingualism and Spanish as a heritage language.
Assistant Professor: Writing and Language Studies
Writing and Language Studies
Email: ryan.bessett@utrgv.edu
ELABS 234

David Bowles

Assistant Professor: Literatures and Cultural Studies
Phone: 956-665-3436
Email: david.bowles01@utrgv.edu
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David Bowles

A Mexican-American author from the RGV, David Bowles is an assistant professor in the Literatures and Cultural Studies department.
Assistant Professor: Literatures and Cultural Studies
Literatures and Cultural Studies
Email: david.bowles01@utrgv.edu
EEDUC 1510
Phone: 956-665-3436

Katherine Christoffersen

Assistant Professor
Phone: (956) 665-3428
Email: katherine.christoffersen@ut...
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Katherine Christoffersen

Dr. Christoffersen's studies and teaches various aspects of sociolinguistics and bilingualism, especially having to do with the contact between languages (such as Spanish and English) including practices like code-switching. She especially loves involving students in her research. In 'Intro to Border Languages,' students learn about ideologies, attitudes, and patterns related to language the US/Mexico border and collect sociolinguistic interviews to add to the Corpus Bilingue del Valle (CoBiVa), a project in collaboration with Dr. Bessett: https://www.utrgv.edu/cobiva/
Assistant Professor
Writing and Language Studies
Email: katherine.christoffersen@utrgv.edu
ELABS 266
Phone: (956) 665-3428

Thomas De La Cruz

Lecturer II: Writing & Language Studies
Phone: (956) 665-8781
Email: thomas.delacruz@utrgv.edu
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Thomas De La Cruz

Thomas De La Cruz is a Chicano fiction writer who works in the Language and Writing studies department as a Lecturer.
Lecturer II: Writing & Language Studies
Email: thomas.delacruz@utrgv.edu
ELABS 266
Phone: (956) 665-8781

George T. Diaz

Associate Professor: History
Email: george.diaz@utrgv.edu
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George T. Diaz

George T. Díaz is an assistant professor of History at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Associate Professor: History
History
Email: george.diaz@utrgv.edu
ELABS 342

Lucas Espinoza

Assistant Professor: Criminal Justice
Email: lucas.espinoza01@utrgv.edu
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Lucas Espinoza

Dr. Espinoza is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from Texas Woman’s University. His research areas are culture and identity; Latina/o disparities and social justice rights/issues. He teaches courses on criminal justice research methods/statistics; criminology; environmental crime; and gender.
Assistant Professor: Criminal Justice
Criminal Justice
Email: lucas.espinoza01@utrgv.edu
ELABN 332

Dr. Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto

Associate Professor - Bilingual & Literacy Studies
Phone: (956) 882-7423
Email: miryam.espinosadulanto@utrg...
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Dr. Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto

Dr. Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto (Lic. Universidad Católica del Perú; M.A. & Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Bilingual & Literacy Studies, University of Texas- Rio Grande Valley. Miryam is an active scholar with a distinguished record of teaching, service, and professional activity. Her teaching and research draw on decolonial indigenous feminist research methodologies. It is recognized by being transnational in scope yet intimately collaborative using poetry, testimonios, ethnography and art-based qualitative methodologies. Miryam’s scholarly and artistic publications appear both in leading academic journals, handbooks, peer reviewed books, and regional/local publications that evidence the broad interdisciplinary, community based, and intellectual curiosity of her engagement.
Associate Professor - Bilingual & Literacy Studies
Email: miryam.espinosadulanto@utrgv.edu
BMAIN 2.314
Phone: (956) 882-7423

Joy Esquierdo

Professor: Bilingual and Literacy Studies
Phone: 956-665-3605
Email: joy.esquierdo@utrgv.edu
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Joy Esquierdo

Professor: Bilingual and Literacy Studies
Bilingual and Literacy Studies
Email: joy.esquierdo@utrgv.edu
EEDUC 2602
Phone: 956-665-3605

Kim L Nguyen Finn

Lecturer I: Rehab Srvs & Counseling
Phone: (956) 665-7041
Email: kim.finn01@utrgv.edu
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Kim L Nguyen Finn

Kim Nguyen-Finn, PhD, LPC-S, has been a mental health counselor since 1998 and is a Texas Licensed Professional Counselor Board-approved Supervisor. Aside from serving as a lecturer in the School of Rehabilitation Counseling and Services, she provides individual, family, and couples counseling for a wide range of issues, including anxiety disorders, OCD, depression, trauma resolution, and gender identity, in private practice. Currently, Ms. Finn also serves as consulting counselor for UTRGV’s Office for Victim Advocacy and Violence Prevention, and is an expert witness for domestic violence and sexual assault cases. Ms. Finn was raised in a military household and earned her doctorate from UTRGV’s Rehabilitation Counseling program and Masters of Arts in Educational Psychology from UTSA.

Lecturer I: Rehab Srvs & Counseling
Email: kim.finn01@utrgv.edu
EHABW 1.102A
Phone: (956) 665-7041

Christen Garcia

Assistant Professor: Art
Email: christen.garcia@utrgv.edu
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Christen Garcia

Sperry Garcia is co-founder of the Nationwide Museum Mascot Project that has performed at the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Lima, Peru; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; and Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogota, Columbia.

Assistant Professor: Art
Email: christen.garcia@utrgv.edu
BMAIN

M. Miriam Herrera

Senior Lecturer : Writing and Language Studies
Phone: (956) 665-8771
Email: maria.herrera@utrgv.edu
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M. Miriam Herrera

Miriam is a Lecturer II with the Writing and Languages Studies. She teaches MASC 2301, Intro to Mexican American Studies, as well as Composition and Rhetoric and Creative Writing. She is a poet who graduated from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois, Chicago.  Her first collection of poetry, Kaddish for Columbus, was a finalist in the New Women's Voices Chapbook competition and was published in 2009 by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have also been published in Southwestern American Literature, New Millennium Writings, Earth's Daughters, Albatross, ArtLife, Blue Mesa Review, Nimrod: International Journal of Prose and Poetry, and other journals.
Senior Lecturer : Writing and Language Studies
Writing and Language Studies
Email: maria.herrera@utrgv.edu
ELABS 205A
Phone: (956) 665-8771

Arlett Lomeli

Assistant Professor: Sociology
Phone: (956) 665-3318
Email: arelett.lomeli@utrgv.edu
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Arlett Lomeli

Dr. Lomelí is first generation immigrant and college student. She enjoyed growing up on both sides of the U.S.- Mexico Border. Dr. Lomelí is a sociologist and focuses on border studies that intersect with race, criminology, and environmental issues.
Assistant Professor: Sociology
Sociology
Email: arelett.lomeli@utrgv.edu
BMAIN 1412
Phone: (956) 665-3318

Alfonso Mercado

Assistant Professor: Psychological Science
Phone: 956-665-3320
Email: alfonso.mercado@utrgv.edu
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Alfonso Mercado

Originally from Los Angeles, Dr. Mercado is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley as well as a Licensed Psychologist.
Assistant Professor: Psychological Science
Psychological Science
Email: alfonso.mercado@utrgv.edu
ELABN 355
Phone: 956-665-3320

Dr. Robert P. Moreira

Lecturer: Creative Writing
Phone: (956) 665-8771
Email: robert.moreira@utrgv.edu
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Dr. Robert P. Moreira

Robert Paul Moreira teaches fiction & playwriting at UTRGV and serves as Managing Editor for riverSedge. He received the 2016 NACCS Tejas FOCO Fiction Award for his story collection, Scores. As a dramatist, Robert's plays include Roses from Castile, Proxima b, Dick Tea. and Malinalli, a musical-in-progress.
Lecturer: Creative Writing
Creative Writing
Email: robert.moreira@utrgv.edu
ELABS 205
Phone: (956) 665-8771

Ana Peña-Olivia

Lecturer III: Writing & Language Studies
Phone: (956) 882-8246
Email: ana.pena@utrgv.edu
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Ana Peña-Olivia

A member of the Spanish Undergraduate Program, joined UT-B in 1999. Currently, a Lecturer III of Hispanic Linguistics and an Undergraduate Spanish Program Degree Specialist for the Departments of Writing and Language Studies with over 18 years of experience in curriculum and assessment. 20 years of teaching experience teaching Lower Level Spanish courses, including Spanish for Non-Native Speakers for 17 years, Spanish for Faculty and Staff at UT-Brownsville for 4 years, and 6 years of teaching experience teaching Advanced Spanish Applied Linguistic courses at the University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College and UTRGV. Faculty Co-Advisor for Sigma Delta Pi, the National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society. A PhD in Hispanic Linguistics candidate with the University of Houston, graduation Spring 2019.
Lecturer III: Writing & Language Studies
Email: ana.pena@utrgv.edu
BMAIN 1518
Phone: (956) 882-8246

Cynthia Paccacerqua

Associate Professor
Phone: (956) 665-3552
Email: cynthia.paccacerqua@utrgv.edu
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Cynthia Paccacerqua

Associate Professor
Philosophy
Email: cynthia.paccacerqua@utrgv.edu

Phone: (956) 665-3552

Emmy Pérez

Professor: Creative Writing
Phone: 956-665-3435
Email: emmy.perez@utrgv.edu
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Emmy Pérez

Emmy Pérez, Texas Poet Laureate 2020, is the author of the poetry collections With the River on Our Face (University of Arizona Press) and Solstice (Swan Scythe Press). A volume of her new and selected poems is forthcoming from TCU Press. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship, CantoMundo fellowship, and the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award, among others. For her teaching, she has received the UT Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and an Excellence Award in Student Mentoring. Currently, she is Professor of Creative Writing in the College of Fine Arts and Associate Director of the Center for Mexican American Studies, B3 Institute.
Professor: Creative Writing
Creative Writing
Email: emmy.perez@utrgv.edu
ELABS 206
Phone: 956-665-3435

Alejandra I. Ramírez

Assistant Professor: Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies
Email: alejandra.ramirez@utrgv.edu
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Alejandra I. Ramírez

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.

Assistant Professor: Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies
Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies
Email: alejandra.ramirez@utrgv.edu
BSABH 2.412

Dagoberto Eli Ramirez

Lecturer I: University College
Phone: 956-665-3436
Email: dagoberto.ramirez@utrgv.edu
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Dagoberto Eli Ramirez

Dagoberto Eli Ramirez’s teaching and research agenda focus on culturally relevant pedagogical issues. Ramirez fosters a gracious space in his classes.
Lecturer I: University College
University College
Email: dagoberto.ramirez@utrgv.edu
ESTAC 2113
Phone: 956-665-3436

Noe Ramirez

Associate Professor: Social Work
Phone: 956-665-3575
Email: noe.ramirez@utrgv.edu
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Noe Ramirez

Associate Professor, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Bachelors, Masters, & Doctorate in Social Work.
Associate Professor: Social Work
Social Work
Email: noe.ramirez@utrgv.edu
ESWOT 1207
Phone: 956-665-3575

Rosalva Resendiz

Associate Professor: Criminal Justice
Phone: 956-665-3566
Email: rosalva.resendiz@utrgv.edu
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Rosalva Resendiz

Dr. Resendiz earned her Ph.D. at Texas Woman’s University and specializes in Border Studies, Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality
Associate Professor: Criminal Justice
Criminal Justice
Email: rosalva.resendiz@utrgv.edu
ELABN 311
Phone: 956-665-3566

Noreen Rivera

Assistant Professor: Literatures & Cultural Studies
Phone: (956) 882-7600
Email: noreen.rivera@utrgv.edu
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Noreen Rivera

Díana Noreen Rivera specializes in 19th and 20th century literatures and cultures of the U.S. Southwest and U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Archival research informs the majority of her scholarly projects. Her current projects investigate the socio-poetics of place and community in natural disaster corridos and the Cold War-era writings of Americo Paredes.
Assistant Professor: Literatures & Cultural Studies
Email: noreen.rivera@utrgv.edu
BSABH 2114
Phone: (956) 882-7600

Jamie Starling

Associate Professor: History
Phone: 956-665-8797
Email: jamie.starling@utrgv.edu
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Jamie Starling

Jamie Starling is a historian of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands from the Spanish colonial period through the nineteenth century.
Associate Professor: History
History
Email: jamie.starling@utrgv.edu
ELABS 356
Phone: 956-665-8797

Alexander Stehn

Professor: Philosophy
Phone: 956-665-7487
Email: alex.stehn@utrgv.edu
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Alexander Stehn

UTRGV hired Dr. Stehn for a position in “American and/or Latin American Philosophy”. He tries to live and learn, research and teach in that slash.

Professor: Philosophy
Philosophy
Email: alex.stehn@utrgv.edu
ELABS 359
Phone: 956-665-7487

Rosalynn Vega

Associate Professor: Anthropology
Email: rosalynn.vega@utrgv.edu
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Rosalynn Vega

Rosalynn A. Vega is Assistant Professor of Medical Anthropology and Global Health at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (2016-present). Prior to her current appointment, she was a research scientist at Centro for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology – Mexico City (2014-2015) and Adjunct Faculty at National Autonomous University of Mexico Medical School (2013-2014). Her ethnographic monograph, No Alternative: Childbirth, Citizenship, and Indigenous Culture in Mexico, was published by the University of Texas Press in 2018. She has published numerous articles, including “Commodifying Indigeneity: How the Humanization of Birth Reinforces racialized inequality in Mexico,” which appeared in Medical Anthropology Quarterly in 2017.

Associate Professor: Anthropology
Email: rosalynn.vega@utrgv.edu
ELABN 330

Leticia Zavala

Lecturer: Sociology
Phone: (956) 665-8723
Email: leticia.zavala01@utrgv.edu
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Leticia Zavala

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.
Lecturer: Sociology
Email: leticia.zavala01@utrgv.edu
ELABN 350
Phone: (956) 665-8723
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