College of Letters & Science
CLS core faculty member Revel Sims received word this Fall that he was promoted to Associate Professor. Prof. Sims began teaching for the CLS Program in 2016. His research on how the structures of urban property and housing markets shape and constrain urban planning and policy—particularly in their impacts on lower-income communities and communities of …
Professor Diana Leon-Boys recently collaborated with Mattel/American Girl in the creation of Raquel Reyes, the 2026 American Girl of the Year. The doll is Mexican American, and the Mattel website describes her as “a paleta maker, pickleball player, dolphin saver, and dance-party DJ” and outlines an intriguing backstory. As part of the team of advisors, Prof. …
Professor Mariana Pacheco and two collaborators published “Re-imagining social futures: Bi/multilingual youths’ sociocritical literacies” in the July 2025 issue of the Journal of Literacy Research. The paper focuses on a summer writing program that Pacheco and her colleagues called GANAS (an acronym using a word that means “desire” or “motivation” in Spanish) for bi/multilingual youth, …
Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor Alfonso Morales has finished a successful run as chair of the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture, but he’s not resting on his laurels. This semester, he has served on the program committee for the NSF funded 2025 Summit on AI leadership. He also made a presentation, and he was responsible …
For CLS faculty member Marla Ramírez’s, Fall 2025 saw the publication of her highly successful first book and a notable research award from the Department of History. Her book Banished Citizens: A History of the Mexican American Women who Endured Repatriation (Harvard University Press 2025) promises to change the conversation about the expulsion of as …
In December of 2025, the Modern Language Association awarded its sixteenth Prize in United States Latina and Latina and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies to CLS Director Theresa Delgadillo for her 2024 book Geographies of Relation: Diasporas and Borderlands in the Americas. The Association’s press release notes that Geographies of Relation “masterfully combines …
The Chicanx & Latinx Studies Program proudly shares that Professor Armando Ibarra, former CLS Director, has been appointed by Governor Tony Evers to the Wisconsin Governor’s Council on Migrant Labor as a migrant representative. His term runs from November 26, 2025, through July 1, 2026. The Council brings together employer, migrant, and legislative representatives to …
CLS Director Theresa Delgadillo, who is also a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor, published Geographies of Relation: Diasporas and Borderlands in the Americas, in September 2024, and since then, the book has earned notable awards and led to significant speaking engagements. In December of 2025, the Modern Language Association awarded the book its sixteenth Prize in United …
CLS Faculty member Almita Miranda won the 2025 “Nuevas Direcciones” award from the Association of Latina/o and Latinx Anthropologists for her work with the ¡Presente! project, which brings UW–Madison researchers and community archivists together with Wisconsin Historical Society through the Wisconsin Latinx History Collective. With support from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission, Prof. …
Professor Delgadillo delivered the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum Lecture at Claremont McKenna College in California in October 2025. Professor Delgadillo’s lecture drew from her recent research in Geographies of Relation and extended this in new directions to consider the work of three twentieth and twenty-first century photographers dedicated to portraying African diaspora communities across the hemisphere. …