Amalia Pallares serves as the University of Illinois at Chicago Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Engagement, while also holding a position as a Professor of Political Science and Latin American and Latino Studies. Dr. Pallares has been on the faculty for 23 years since earning her PhD in Political Science from the University of Texas at Austin. She has engaged in academic program building, fundraising, and issues affecting underrepresented students and faculty. Previous administrative positions include Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program, Associate Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences (2006-2008) and Interim Co-Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy (1998). A scholar of social movements and political identities in Latin America and the U.S., Dr. Pallares is the author or editor of several books and other publications, including Family Activism: Immigrant Struggles and the Politics of Noncitizenship (2014), Marcha: Latino Chicago and the Immigrant Rights Movement (2010) and From Peasant Struggles to Indian Resistance (2002).  While serving as an advisor to the Chancellor and Provost on many campus issues and initiatives, Dr Pallares is responsible for overseeing and guiding various units in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Engagement; facilitating campus-wide efforts to enhance diversity, inclusion, and equity; and engaging the wider community around these issues.

María de los Ángeles Torres is LAS Distinguished Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago and Principal investigator/Director of the IUPLR/UIC Mellon Fellowship Program. She received her PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She taught political science at DePaul University in Chicago from 1987 to 2005 and was faculty associate at the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies, 2000-2001 and a research fellow at Chapin Hall, University of Chicago 2002. She is the former Executive Director of the Inter-University Program for Latino Research (2013-2018). Dr. Torres is the author of two books, The Lost Apple: Operation Pedro Pan, Cuban Children in the US and the Promise of a Better Future (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004) and In the Land of Mirrors: The Politics of Cuban Exiles in the United States (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999). She is co-author of Citizens in the Present: Youth Civic Engagement in the Americas (University of Illinois Press, 2013). In addition, she has edited By Heart/De Memoria: Cuban Women's Journeys In and Out of Exile (Philadelphia: Temple University, 2002), and co-edited Global Cities and Immigrants: A Comparative Study of Chicago and Madrid, (Peter Lang, 2015), and Borderless Borders: Latinos, Latin American and the Paradoxes of Interdependence (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998). Dr. Torres has published chapters and essays on issues of diversity, US/Cuba relations, and immigration. Currently she is completing the book manuscript titled, The Elusive Present: Democracy's Time in Cuban Thought. 

Olga U. Herrera is an art historian, independent curator, and a visiting scholar in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She previously served as director of the Inter-University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR) Washington Office and held positions at the University of Notre Dame, and the Smithsonian Institution. While at IUPLR she was director of the Summer Institute for Latino Public Policy (2005-2013) and was involved in hemispheric and national research humanities initiatives in Latino Studies including the organization of the biennial conferences Siglo XXI and Latino Art Now! Dr. Herrera is the author of Toward the Preservation of a Heritage: Latin American and Latino Art in the Midwestern United States (ILS, University of Notre Dame, 2008); American Interventions and Modern Art in South America (University Press of Florida, 2017; 2019) winner of the 2018 SECAC Award for Excellence in Scholarly Research and Publication; and editor of Scherezade García: From This Side of the Atlantic (AMA, 2020), and iliana emilia García: The Reason/The Object/The Word (AMA, 2020). She co-edited the special issue of the Diálogo on Latin American and Latino Art (spring 2017). Her essays and interviews have appeared in publications of the International Center of the Art of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts- Houston, the Archives of American Art Journal, MIT ARTMargins, Diálogo, Public Art Dialogue, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures of the Americas, and others. Her latest book project explores the relationship between multinational corporations and modern art at mid-century. She holds a Ph.D. in Latin American modern and contemporary art history and theories of globalization from George Mason University. 

Eve Ali Boles is the Director of the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Liberal Arts & Sciences’ Office of Social Science Research (OSSR). Ms. Boles has extensive experience working in higher education administration with strong expertise in financial management, human resources, operations, and policy analysis. She earned a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master's in Urban Planning and Public Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has been a Certified Research Administrator (CRA) since 2012.

Jessica Seno is the Pre-award Specialist for the Office of Social Science Research. She is responsible for the pre-award submission process for the Humanities and Social Sciences Departments at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Additionally, she is responsible for performing accounting and administering internal and external grants and contracts. Jessica received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting from Robert Morris University in 2005 and a master’s in science in Research Administration from Rush University in 2014.

Elizabeth Obregón serves as the Fellowship and Mentorship Program GRA Coordinator for the Mellon Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her primary research interests are in the role of science in racialization, and productions of ethnic and racial identities both transnationally and cross-generationally. Her ethnographic research critically explores the cultural, biological, and genetic ideas that shape racialized categories, narratives of racial mixture, and racial inequality across Cuba and the U.S. diaspora. Her articles have been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies (2020) and SAPIENS (2021). She is co-editor of the IUPLR/UIC report “Mapping New Directions in Latino Research” (2018). She is a former Inter-University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR)/Mellon Foundation Fellow (2020-2021).

Frida Sanchez Vega is a doctoral candidate in the English department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, focusing on rhetorical studies. She was a Mellon Grant Crossing Latinidades fellow (2022-2023).  Her academic research includes ethnography of asylum seekers at the U.S.- Mexico border while analyzing citizenship and the birth of the nation-state through the lenses of critical rhetoric and immigration rhetoric. She aims to expand the rhetorical understanding of immigration, refugees, and the citizen/non-citizen dynamic.