College of Letters & Science
Biography Almita Miranda is an interdisciplinary geographer and cultural anthropologist with research interests in race/ethnicity, gender, political economy, (im)migration, citizenship, transnationalism, Latinx families and grassroots organizing in the U.S. and Mexico. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2017 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in …
Biography Maria Mora Pinzon’s Alzheimer’s Lab Dr. Maria Mora Pinzon is a faculty member in the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology within the Department of Medicine. Board certified in preventative medicine and public health, Dr. Mora Pinzon has served in several committees of the American College of Preventive Medicine—most recently completing a term as the …
Biography Alfonso Morales is originally from New Mexico, and his family has farmed and ranched in West Texas for more than 100 years. He is interested in applying science to support society and to help produce social goods. He studies food systems, public marketplaces, and street vendors, supports non-profit organizations, writes these topics as well …
Biography Ana Oaxaca-Carrasco is a political scientist , studying the intersection of immigration, representation, and urban politics in U.S. municipalities. Her dissertation investigated the impact of a seemingly nationalized electorate on local elite behavior on the issue of immigration and examines the strategic decision-making process by municipal officials that leads to inequality in representation for immigrant constituencies. …
Biography Mariana Pacheco’s research focuses on how bi(multi)lingual students (or “English Learners”) employ their linguistic repertoires in different contexts in and outside of school. She employs ethnographic and anthropological methods to understand the sociopolitical and sociocultural processes related to teaching, learning, and curriculum with bi(multi)lingual students, particularly from Chican@/Latin@ and (im)migrant backgrounds. For more information, …
Biography Biography I am a historian of the US–Mexico border specializing in Mexican American banishment, citizenship and state-imposed illegality, and gendered migrations. I am the author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning monograph, Banished Citizens: A History of the Mexican American Women Who Endured Repatriation (Harvard University Press, 2025). I investigate how processes of mass immigration removals …
Biography Diana Rodríguez Gómez is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Policy Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her work examines state-building and education policy-making processes in areas affected by violence, particularly in Latin America. In her current research project, she draws from qualitative and ethnographic methods to explore the concepts of state …
Biography Diego Román is an education researcher informed by sociocultural linguistics. His areas of interest include Bilingual education, language development in the content areas, content-area literacy, language acquisition, bilingualism, multicultural education, education of immigrant students, agricultural education, science and environmental education for multilingual students, and Quichua-speaking communities in Wisconsin. He is a participant in the …
Biography Christopher Saldaña is an assistant professor of K-12 educational leadership and policy analysis. Chris’s research examines the relationship between K-12 school finance and educational opportunity, focusing particularly on the educational experiences of minoritized and marginalized students. Chris uses multiple and mixed methods in his research.
Biography Aurora Santiago Ortiz is an Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Chicanx/e and Latinx/ez Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on antiracist feminisms, decolonial perspectives, and participatory action research. Her work has been published in the Michigan Journal for Community Service Learning, the Italian Journal of Urban Studies, Curriculum Inquiry, the International …