Jonathan Aguilar is a PhD student in the Sociology Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and migrated to Los Angeles at the age of 18. After receiving his Bachelor's in sociology from Cal Poly Pomona, I became a union organizer with Fight for 15. His experiences as a political organizer and first-generation student inform his sociological interests. His research centers on Latino/a social movements, where he focuses on how Latinos/as create place-making and belonging.  His current project examines how food street vendors and grassroots organizations in Southern Nevada (re)frame citizenship and belonging in the current political environment. 

Bilgenur Aydın is a doctoral student and instructor in the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department at the University of New Mexico. Raised among Turkish grandmothers who were parteras and hueseras, she developed an early appreciation for cultural traditions. Reading Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya deepened her understanding of transnational cultural connections,shaping her academic path. She holds an M.A. in American Culture and Literature focusing on Anaya’s works from Başkent University, in Ankara, Turkey. Her research explores Nuevomexicana/o literature and cultural studies, engaging with Latin American Subaltern Studies. She examines the intersections of colonialism, race, and feminism in El Movimiento, curanderismo, and literatura chicanesca through archival research. Her current work focuses on Middle Eastern and Moorish influences in Nuevomexicana/o identity and literary representations.

Lea Colchado-Joaquin (she/her/ella) is a scholar from the South Texas borderlands, and is a doctoral student in Rhetoric, Composition, and Pedagogy at the University of Houston. She is the recipient of the Gloria Anzaldúa Rhetorician Award, The Lydia Mendoza Fellowship, and the Jeanette Morgan Endowment for Excellence in Research and Teaching of Rhetoric and Composition Award. Her research focuses on the womxn-centered literacy practices and epistemologies of Chicanas/Tejanas, feminist coalition building between womxn of color, and decolonial approaches to composition pedagogy. She has published creative work in Asina Is How We Talk, “The Thing Itself,” and in Boundless: Poetry of The Rio Grande Valley. Her scholarly publications will be featured in “Gatherings: Studies in Feminism,” and in Building Bridges: Studies Based on The Writing of Gloria Anzaldúa forthcoming in Fall 2025. 

Brianne Cotter is a doctoral student in the Latin American & Latino Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with an intended designated emphasis in the History of Consciousness. She holds a bachelor's degree in Hispanic Studies and Creative Writing from Oberlin College. Her interests fall between cultural studies, environmental humanities, and political ecology. As a dedicated surfer, her work focuses on Latine histories of surfing in the Americas as a way to explore racial and patriarchal hierarchies, legacies of modernization and colonialization, and the commodification of social and digital life. She has professional experience as a bilingual elementary art educator and has exhibited her hand-cut collages with the French Alliance and the Colombian Ministry of Culture. 

Andrea Cuevas is an art historian, writer, and editor from Mexico. She holds a degree in Art Theory (Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana) and a Master's degree in Art History (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). Her research and writing focus on art writing, memory, geography, territory, and history, from a perspective that prioritizes counter-narratives and counter-memory. She has been editor at the Fundación Arte Abierto, the Museo Tamayo, and the art magazine Código, as well as researcher at the Museo Amparo. She has written for magazines and academic books from Mexico, Chile, and France. She is currently in her second year of the PhD in Spanish with a concentration in Creative Writing at the University of Houston.

marina dadico(she/ela/ella) is an Afro-Brazilian doctoral student in the Latin American & Latino Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre, Brazil.She is interested in Afro-diasporic insurgent practices of space-making as a way to interrogate notions of belonging, citizenship, and solidarity-building. Her work focuses on cimarronaje as an epistemological framework that emerges at the crossroads of Black, Latinx, and Latin American decolonial geographies to conjure more radically liberatory futures. Her current research examines archival sources and cultural productions across the Américas to explore how cimarronaje has shaped Afro-Latinx geographical imaginaries, political coalitions, and contemporary responses to spatial exclusion.

Ricardo Delgado Solis is currently a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He was awarded the Chancellor Research Fellowship as an undergraduate and is also a 2021 Racial Justice Fellow at UCSB. Recently, he received his Master's degree in Chicana/o Studies from UCSB. Ricardo's research explores the intersection of race and immigration, with a specific focus on the experiences of undocumented queer Latinx individuals in the United States. Drawing from a multidisciplinary approach, he aims to highlight the often-overlooked challenges, hardships, and achievements of undocumented queer individuals. His work emphasizes their resilience and ability to navigate complex immigration policies while humanizing their narratives.

Vanessa Delgado is a Ph.D. student in Urban Planning and Public Policy at the University of Texas at Arlington. She holds an M.A. in International Studies with an emphasis on Sustainable Development from the University of North Texas. Vanessa’s research interests revolve around reproductive rights, feminist planning, and community development. Her dissertation research explores the role of urban planning in advancing maternal health equity among Latinx women. She has also worked to connect nonprofits with resources to strengthen communities through grant writing and GIS and has gained experience as an intern with the American Planning Association’s Sustainability Division.

Thaïs Escobar Sanabria is a third-year Ph.D. student in Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University. Originally from Colombia, she holds a B.A. in History and an M.A. in Geography from Universidad de Los Andes. Her research examines social inequality, environmental justice, and public health, focusing on extreme heat exposure in marginalized Latino/a/x/e urban communities. She previously worked at the Colombian Attorney General’s Office, investigating human rights violations, environmental crimes, and organized crime. Her expertise in participatory visual methodologies, ethnography, and GIS helps her analyze how Latino communities adapt to climate stressors. Through the Crossing Latinidades Summer Institute, she seeks to strengthen her interdisciplinary approach to Latino/a/x/e Studies. She is fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Claudia Espinel is a PhD student in Criminology, Law, and Justice at UIC. Through her professional and personal experiences, Claudia became interested in understanding and addressing the dynamics of labor exploitation in the U.S. She seeks to identify paths for shifting from extractive frameworks of labor toward narratives, practices, and social contracts that foster the full development of humans and nature. Claudia is exploring the connection between labor and the carceral logic, while deepening her understanding of frameworks to imagine and build alternative futures. Her research focuses on how Latinx and transnational social movements challenge labor dynamics and offer alternative visions of labor. She is mapping how their purpose, strategies, actions, and learnings provide insights into the possibilities and barriers to creating a different world.

Maria Jose Hernandez, MJ (she/they), is a queer, first generation, Chicana who is very proudly the eldest daughter of two hard working immigrants from Durango, Mexico. They have taught MJ to dream and stay rooted in community, elements seen in the work that MJ does. MJ is a Tejana in their second year as a Ph.D. student at the Center for the Study of Higher Education, in the College of Education at the University of Arizona. Their research interests exist at the intersections of higher education, jotería studies, Chicana feminism and rasquachismo. Their dissertation seeks to understand how queer latine graduate students navigate closeting structures embedded in higher education and by utilizing collective art making to further explore how they make sense of jotería, healing, and joy, despite gatekeeping and violence that occurs in colleges and universities. As an artist, MJ sees art making as integral to their multidisciplinary work because it allows those, of us, that exist in the margins to build and dream of joteríafutures and possibilities. Broadly, MJ seeks to honor the nopal que lleva en la frente, sujotería y communidad in their artistic and academic work.

Monica Hernandez (she/her/ella) is a Ph.D. student in the Education Leadership and Policy Studies program at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Before pursuing her Ph.D., she spent nearly a decade in the workforce in public, private, and nonprofit spaces. Her work experience has shaped her research interests, which include Latina STEM students, Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), and workforce development and preparedness from these institutions. Her current research focuses on STEM undergraduate education through a Hispanic student success framework. Monica received her Bachelor of Arts in English and Chicano Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a Master of Science in Teaching Secondary English from Fordham University, and a Master of Education in Higher Education from UTSA.

Juliana Javierre is a Colombian writer, researcher, and editor. As a writer, she has published four books, as well as various short stories and articles. Her novel Siete veces Lucía won the Premio Nacional de Novela Aniversario Ciudad Pereira 2017, and her novel Plaga was published by Planeta in 2021. As a researcher, she explores the gendered violence experienced by Latina migrant women in the United States through a multidisciplinary and intersectional approach that incorporates unconventional artistic expressions, "minor" literary genres, performances, and material writing. She is currently a Ph.D. student in Spanish with a concentration in Creative Writing at the University of Houston and a member of the student group Comité Permanente, where she collaborates with migrant writers and artists in Houston, Texas.

Estefany Londoño (she/her) is a doctoral student in Sociology at the University of Central Florida, where she studies hormonal health, medical discourses, and reproductive justice through the lenses of critical theory and body politics. Her dissertation explores how individuals navigate Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) using qualitative methods to analyze how people navigate medical systems and self-managed practices, digital  narratives, and structural barriers to health. As a Colombian, first-gen academic, Estefany works to build bridges between scholarship and community organizing committed to language justice and health equity. She is a community organizer, interpreter, and worker-owner of the language justice cooperative Lantana Collective, and collaborates with national and grassroots organizations advancing reproductive, racial, and global gender justice.

Ricardo López Jr. is an English PhD student at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on 20th and 21st century Latiné novels and their form. He is particularly interested in how authors of contemporary Latiné novels are invested in using unconventional literary forms to disarm, obscure, and write against authoritative documents. In studying novels that center queer, undocumented, and otherwise marginalized Latinépeople in the United States, Ricardo believes novels become a critical strategy to fight against structures of oppression permeating the country. He received his BA in English: Education at California State University, Dominguez Hills where he was also a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow for the 2022-23 academic year.

Luis E. Macias Barrientos is a doctoral student and instructor in the Urban Planning and Public Policy department at the University of Texas at Arlington. He immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico at a young age, was raised in Dallas, Texas, and is a first-generation college graduate. He served as a high school teacher for six years, teaching Mexican American Studies and AP Human Geography. During the pandemic, his MAS students partnering with the African American Studies students published an anthology titled Faceless: Untold side effects of Culture, Race, & COVID-19. Luis’ current research interests include urban informal use of space, specifically the informal mechanisms of health and community care exhibited by Latinx immigrant community members.

Mariana Magaña Gamero is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Irvine. Born in Jalisco, México, and raised in Santa Monica, Mariana attended Santa Monica Community College and transferred to UCLA, majoring in Political Science and minoring in Chicanx Studies. Before starting graduate school, Mariana worked in Los Angeles County, advancing pro-immigrant policies. Her personal and professional experiences have significantly influenced Mariana’s research interests. Her current research examines the processes of the U.S. immigration court system and its impact on non-citizen Mexican and Central American adults in removal proceedings.

Rosa Maldonado is a Ph.D student in the Department of Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona. She is also minoring in Medical Anthropology. She received her Master’s degree in Chicana(o) and Latina(o) Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and Bachelor’s degree in Chicana/o and Central American Studies at California State University, Northridge. She is interested in exploring the intersection of medicine, humanistic inquiry, and expression to construct care narratives centered on health and well-being. Her current research areas are immersed in the confluence of Chicana literature and medicine, broadly to re-examine how literary texts such as Borderlands/La Frontera can direct “ontological turns” towards feminist interpretations of health. She situates Borderlands as a textual archive that historicizes enfleshed violence imprinted onto Mexicanas and Chicanas across space and time while also refusing to render these women into precarity within said archives. 

Nathaly Martinez (she/her/ella) is a doctoral student in the School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. She is a first-generation scholar of Mexican descent, born in Los Angeles and raised in South Gate, CA. She holds a B.A. in Sociology and a minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies from UC Riverside and a MEd in Higher Education from HarvardUniversity’s Graduate School of Education. As a higher education administration and policy scholar, her research explores how Chicanas and Latinas in graduate programs experience traditional and non-traditional mentorship, aiming to transform oppressive spaces into communities of resistance and restoration. She aims to contribute to the literature on mentoring efforts to support Chicanas and Latinas in doctoral programs.

Leslie Martínez-Románis a doctoral student in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University and an affiliate of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center. She holds a BA in Law and Society from the University of Puerto Rico, Carolina Campus, and a master’s in planning from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. Leslie served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member at Proyecto ENLACE del Caño Martín Peña, where she gained firsthand knowledge of housing, informality, land tenure, and environmental risks. After Hurricane María (2017), she contributed to disaster response and recovery efforts in Puerto Rico. Her dissertation research focuses on the intersections of housing recovery programs, and informal communities in Puerto Rico post-Hurricane María. A proud Puerto Rican and a first-generation scholar, she is committed to supporting underserved students through her academic journey. She documents her experiences in a vlog and serves as the PhD Chair for the HRRC Student Committee. Outside of academia, Leslie enjoys spending time with her family and community, photo-journaling, pottery, and nature.

Lena Mose-Vargas (she/they) is a Chicana born and raised in Emporia, Kansas. She is a doctoral student in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Mose-Vargas holds a B.A. from the University of Kansas, where they double majored in American Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. They have contributed to major projects at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and the Spencer Museum of Art. Mose-Vargas’ dissertation research examines how transnational and socialist feminisms shaped Chicana activism in Kansas in the 1970s. She aims to bridge her dissertation research with cultural heritage institutions to amplify marginalized voices through public history.

Jazmin N. Muñoz (she/her) is a doctoral student in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a first-gen queer disabled Chicana from Southern Colorado. Her research interests include twentieth-century feminist interracial social movements, leftist coalitional politics, police brutality, surveillance studies, and public history.  Muñoz received a B.A. in Women's and Ethnic Studies with a minor in Communication from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and later received a M.A. in Bicultural Studies from the University of Texas at San Antonio. 

Daniela Navarro Verdugo is a fourth-year doctoral student in Counseling Psychology at Texas Tech University. Originally from Tijuana, Mexico, she has spent most of her life in San Diego, California. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from California State Polytechnic University-Pomona in 2021. Daniela is currently a graduate student in the Latinx Mental Health and Resiliency Lab, where she explores factors that impact the well-being of Latinx individuals. Her current research focuses on mental health disparities, the role of cultural values in psychological well-being, and the impact of acculturation on mental health outcomes. She is particularly interested in intergenerational acculturative conflict and the protective role of resiliency in Latinx emerging adults’ mental health.

Diego Pantaleón is a Ph.D. student in Justice Studies at Arizona State University’s School of Social Transformation. His research focuses on forced migration, environmental justice, and social movements. He has experience in qualitative research, social science methodologies, and public policy analysis and has worked as a high school teacher and a civil servant in cultural management and refugee aid. He is working on research projects that examine how U.S. environmental organizations construct narratives through visual culture, protest materials, and organizational histories that incorporate Latin Americancultural legacies. He also studies environmental catastrophes, analyzing how these crises are embedded in global economic structures and shape migration patterns. As a Crossing Latinidades Mellon Predoctoral Fellow, he seeks to bridge scholarship, activism, and policy advocacy.

Daisy Paredes is a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Originally from the Rio Grande Valley, her studies in cultural anthropology center around health, education, care, and economy in South Texas. As a Top Scholar, she received her B.A. in Anthropology at UTSA in 2021 after completing her honors thesis, which focused on assemblages of mental health care on college campuses and helped establish new support initiatives at her institution. She was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to further pursue her work. Her current research focuses on the relationship between political economy, policy, cultural narratives, and Latine first-generation student identity via ethnographic study of first-gen scholarships programs. 

Fabián Pavón is a scholar-activist and public intelectual from Pomona, Ca. He is currently a PhD student with the Chicana and Chicano Studies department at UC Santa Barbara. He is a Racial Justice Fellow and a Scholar in Residence with Gente Organizada, a community-based organization. His fields of study are social movements, immigration, and public history. His dissertation research documents the immigrant rights movement in the Pomona Valley and Inland Empire from 1990 - 2020. His scholar-activism has resulted in the creation of ethnic studies departments, the expansion of student support programs, and an increase in public investment in working-class communities.is a scholar-activist and public intelectual from Pomona, Ca. He is currently a PhD student with the Chicana and Chicano Studies department at UC Santa Barbara. He is a Racial Justice Fellow and a Scholar in Residence with Gente Organizada, a community-based organization. His fields of study are social movements, immigration, and public history. His dissertation research documents the immigrant rights movement in the Pomona Valley and Inland Empire from 1990 - 2020. His scholar-activism has resulted in the creation of ethnic studies departments, the expansion of student support programs, and an increase in public investment in working-class communities.

Julio E. Quiñones Santiago is a composer, educator, poet and DMA student at the CUNY Graduate Center. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he holds a BM in Music Composition from the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico and an MM in Music Composition from the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University. Through his concert works he has explored issues relating to politics, queerness, embodiment, and the contradictions of the cultural and political aspects of the Puerto Rican identity. His research has focused on Puerto Rican concert music and the developments of compositional trends, as well as the role some genres of folk music have played a crucial role in politics and protest.

Monserat Rodriguez Rico is a first-generation scholar and daughter of immigrants. She is currently a Ph.D. student in the department of Sociology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She completed her BA in Criminology and Psychology at the University of New Mexico. As an undergraduate Monserat was also selected as a Mellon Mays fellow. She has experience working in the nonprofit world and this partly inspired her current research interests. As a researcher she is interested in learning more about the experience of Latino professionals in both academia and the nonprofits. More specifically, the mismatch of values and practices in an organizational setting and the consequences of this for both these professionals and the institutions they work in.

Stephany G. Rojas Hidalgo is a Mexican-Salvadorean Ph.D. student at Arizona State University in the Hugh Downs School for Human Communication. She received her B.A and M.A. in Communication from San Diego State University. She teaches Intercultural Communication, Public Speaking, and Communication theory at ASU. Her research focuses on speculative fiction through rhetorical and performative writing methodologies. Specifically, she writes at the intersections of asexuality studies, critical disability studies, futurity and Latinx identity. Her current projects explore Latinx and Diasporic gothic literature, the craft of ‘cozy’ as a white affective genre, and asexuality as a site of deracialized and white coded identification. She reads over 400 books a year.

Bianca Ruiz Negrón is a Sociology PhD student at the University of New Mexico (UNM). She was born and raised in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, but moved to New Mexico in 2021 to pursue her passion for medical sociology. She received her Sociology MA from UNM in 2023. Bianca’s primary research interests include medical knowledge production, Latinx immigrant mental health, and nation-building.  As a doctoral student, her current research explores the social and political factors that shape the production and implementation of medical knowledge around Latinx immigrant mental and emotional well-being. Besides her academic pursuits, Bianca is a research assistant for the Refugee and Immigrant Wellbeing Project at UNM.  

Diana Candelaria Sanchez is a third-year doctoral student in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). She received her master’s degree in Chicana/o Studies at UCSB where she also received her bachelor’s degree in Feminist Studies and Chicana/o Studies. As a graduate student, her research explores the nuances of racialized sexuality, particularly the ways in which Latina’s resist heteronormative expectations of respectable femininity and counter dominant narratives that impose racial and sexual difference onto the Latina body. Specifically, she is interested in the ways Latina college students explore sexuality, experiment with pleasure, and embody sexual aesthetic excess (Hernandez 2020) as a form of healing.

Laura C. Suárez Rodríguez is a Ph.D. student in Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research interrogates diaspora, empire, and decoloniality in the art of Puerto Rico and its U.S. diaspora since the mid-twentieth century. She was an Associate Producer for María Magdalena Campos-Pons' film-performance When We Gather (2021). From 2024-2025, Suárez worked with Black, Race and Ethnic Studies Fellow Professor Emily Verla Bovino on researching and conserving the historic African American Public Art Collection at York College, CUNY in Jamaica, Queens. Suárez's published work includes arts criticism, interviews, book reviews and exhibition catalogue essays on Puerto Rican, Chicanx and Caribbean artists or studies. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

Jenny Torres is a PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. She teaches courses in first-year writing, rhetoric, and writing center tutoring pedagogy. Her research interests focus on methods of argumentation and storytelling stemming from Ancient Greek sophistic practices. She’s currently a teaching assistant for UIC’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence and assists in designing, promoting, and facilitating training workshops and webinars on teaching strategies and techniques for UIC instructors. She is also a supervisor at the UIC Writing Center and the Conference Chair for the Online Writing Centers Association. 

Leslie N. Torres (she/her/hers) is a third year Ph.D. student of History at Texas A&M University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley and a Master of Arts in History from Texas A&M University. Leslie’s doctoral research centers the experiences of Mexican American women in Texan and greater U.S. Progressive Era reform history. She is interested in unraveling how Mexican American women led civil rights and suffrage movements while also navigating internal tensions of race, gender, class, and transnationalism in both male and white dominated spaces, as well as in within an era of fervent Americanization and intensifying immigration debates across the United States.

Martina Visconti is a PhD student in the Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). She holds a B.A. in Hispanic Philology and a B.A. in English and German Translation and Interpreting from the Universidad de Córdoba in Spain. She also holds a Master’s in Spanish with a focus in Linguistics from UCR. Her research interests include medical translation, graphic medicine, Spanish for healthcare, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. She focuses on the accessibility of healthcare information and services for Hispanic communities. Her work examines how language, narrative, and communication strategies shape interactions in various contexts, from medical settings to broader social and cultural frameworks.