Michelle Addington's teaching, research, and professional work span across the disciplines of engineering and architecture with the overarching objective of determining strategic intersections between the optimal domains of physical phenomena with the practical domains of spatial, geo-political, economic, and cultural systems. Her primary areas of research are in sustainable buildings, energy systems, and advanced materials.
Educational Psychology, Medicine, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Ricardo Ainslie’s research focuses on communities in the U.S. and Mexico distressed by violence, ethnic/racial tension, and social transformation. Ainslie also explores the relationship between social fabric and community resilience, and the psychology of immigration both at an individual and at a collective level.
Richard Albert's research interests are constitutionalism, democracy, and the rule of law, with specific focus on constitutional reform, constitution-making, and comparative constitutionalism.
English, Radio-Television-Film, Latin American Studies, LGBTQ Studies, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
Frederick Aldama is an award-winning author of fiction, comics, and scholarly books. He uses insights from narrative theory, cognitive science, and Latinx critical cultural studies to enrich understanding of the creation, distribution, and consumption of U.S. Latinx, Latin American, and European persons of color comics, TV, film, and video games.
Miguel Alvarez is an independent filmmaker, who specializes in production, screenwriting, digital media, narrative film-making, documentary film-making, directing, editing, and post-production.
Maira Álvarez's research explores the development of border militarization along the U.S.-México border from the 1830s to the present. In addition, Álvarez works on digital initiatives focusing on public history to facilitate access to archival material, blending technology with scholarly research within this context.
Journalism and Media, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Rosental Alves' research focuses on international reporting (emphasizing the work of foreign correspondents), journalism in Latin America (especially the struggle for a free press in the hemisphere), and Internet journalism (the creation of a new genre of journalism for the digital medium).
Owen Anderson is a scholar whose expertise is in oil and gas, particularly with regards to international petroleum law, transactions, and taxation. He has written extensively on water law and domestic and global petroleum law.
Stephen Anderson is a quantitative researcher who studies management and policy questions at the intersection of marketing and development economics. His research program focuses on stimulating more inclusive, equitable growth in disadvantaged communities through marketing and entrepreneurship.
Jacqueline Angel's research addresses the relationships linking family structures, inequality, and health across the life course, including a special focus on older Hispanics and the Mexican-origin population. She is particularly interested in evaluating the impact of social policies on the health and well-being of aging immigrants.
Manuela Angelucci's research interests include the marriage market, mental health, social interactions and spillover effects, household behavior with financial market imperfections and migration.
Eugenio Arima's research aims to understand the motivations that drive humans to act upon and transform tropical landscapes and the impact of those changes on people and environments. He is studying how the growing demand for avocados in the U.S. has led to significant socio-environmental consequences in Mexico, where most of the supply comes from.
James Austin is a seismic stratigrapher and has worked on sedimented continental margins (both passive and convergent) around the world since the late 1970s. He has over the past 20 years taken surveys off the shores of Israel, the Antarctic, Mexico (Gulf of Mexico) and off the east coast of the U.S.
Jacqueline Avila specializes in film music and sound studies, and identity, tradition, and modernity in musical cultures and media of Mexico, Latin America, and the Latinx community in the U.S.
Vaibhav Bahadur’s research covers the topics of heat transfer, fluid mechanics, thermal management and surface science with applications in energy, water, and environmental protection.
Doris Baker's research interest is to develop and test interventions that improve the outcomes of English learners using evidence-based practices and technology. She is also interested in the development of formative assessments that can measure student academic growth, the examination of the effect of parental support on their children’s academic outcomes, and the enhancement of teacher pedagogical practices and content knowledge.
Brett Baker's research uses culture independent techniques (genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics) to understand the ecology and evolution of microbial communities.
Jean Barrera is a working musician who also teaches the music and history of Conjunto music. He has performed around the world and is the innovator of the first National Reso-phonic Bajo Sexto.
Geography and the Environment, Environmental Science Institute, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Tim Beach's research interests include geoarchaeology, soils, climate change, wetlands, climate history, geomorphology, and paleoenvironments of the Maya world and Mediterranean. He has conducted field research in the Corn Belt of the U.S., Belize, Colombia, Germany, Guatemala, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Syria, and Turkey.
Radio-Television-Film, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Mexican American & Latina/o Studies
Mary Beltrán specializes in ethnic diversity and the U.S. media industries, U.S. television and film history, mixed race and media culture, and feminist media studies, with emphasis on U.S. Latina and Latino representation and media authorship.
Nathaniel Brickens is an internationally acclaimed trombone player and educator. He has traveled and performed both national and internationally as a free-lance trombonist, as conductor of the UT Trombone Choir, and as a music educator.
Audrey Brumback's research involves a diverse array of approaches such as optogenetics, calcium imaging, behavioral assays, and patch clamp electrophysiology to understand how the brain's circuitry differs in neurodevelopmental conditions like autism. As a pediatric neurology physician-scientist, Dr. Brumback's long-term goal is to develop therapies to improve the lives of people with autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions.
Tan Bui's research collaboration anticipates development of an advanced epidemic model, incorporating inter-connectivities and associated uncertainties. Within this model, innovative statistical, mathematical and efficient machine learning methods provide accurate simulations and quantifiable confidences for predicting infectious disease outbreaks.
History, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Matthew Butler researches and writes about the history of modern Mexico, the history of Catholicism in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, the history of indigenous people, and Mexican agrarian history. More specifically, he is interested in the relationship between Catholicism, modernity, and forms of political liberty in Mexico. He is also developing a new project on the history of the Mexican bullfight.
Elena Cáceres is a theoretical physicist working in string theory and gravity. She has worked in different aspects of gauge/gravity duality, supergravity solutions and holography. Her work is focused on the relationship between quantum information theory, gravity, and spacetime.
Social Work, Mexican American and Latino/a Studies
Esther Calzada is a psychologist with expertise in parenting and early childhood development among ethnic minority, particularly Latinx, families. Her research aims to elucidate the mechanisms underlying inequalities based on race and ethnicity, recognizing mental health and achievement inequalities reflect complex, multi-factorial and dynamic pathways at all levels of a child’s ecological context.
Emmet Campos' work focuses on understanding the experiences of Latinx males across the education pipeline; increasing student success for male students of color in the state of Texas; and school-based, peer and near-peer mentoring that serves as a model for other mentoring programs across Texas.
Bayani Cardenas' research group studies fundamental and applied hydrologic flow and transport phenomena. The group pursues basic knowledge on the role of water in many earth-surface processes, including conventional hydrologic and water quality monitoring, geophysical surveys, remote-sensing, analogue experiments, and mathematical modeling, to design solutions to environmental issues and society's water problems.
Roberto Carlos' research agenda focuses on the Latinx immigrant experience broadly. He looks at how Latinx immigrants and their children incorporate politically and how political institutions and the American public react to their attempts to create a place for themselves in the United States.
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Sergio Castellanos' technical interests include analyzing pathways for decarbonizing the electrical grid and evaluating how equitable are the policies and deployment strategies for technologies that can get society to net-zero-emissions economies.
Marcela Castillo's research interests include medical education, health systems strengthening, and caring for diverse populations with differing cultural and social backgrounds.
Social Work, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Yessenia Castro's research interests include development, evaluation, and dissemination of interventions for health risk behaviors. She also studies the effects of cultural factors, gender, and race and ethnicity on health behavior as well as Latino health and psychometrics.
Lydia CdeBaca-Cruz is committed to closing persistent equity gaps in higher education through decolonial curricular reform and engaging faculty development. She teaches courses in American literature, Mexican American literature, contemporary Latine Literature and Culture, Faulkner and Paredes, and race, class, and political economy in literature.
American Studies, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
Iván Chaar López' research and teaching examine the history and politics of computing and information infrastructures. He is the principal investigator of the Border Tech Lab, a research collective studying computing in the Americas, digital labor and the future of work, and data infrastructures in border enforcement. He is the author of The Cybernetic Border: Drones, Technology, and Intrusion and co-author of Precarity Lab's Technoprecarious.
Jane Champion is a researcher in the area of health promotion and risk reduction of urban and rural ethnic minority women and adolescents. Her clinical research focuses on STI/HIV, substance use, adolescent and women’s health, pregnancy and interpersonal violence. She conducts multilevel, multi-component primary care-based interventions with rural and urban low-income ethnic minority populations to improve their sexual and general health.
Mexican American and Latina/o Studies , Communication Studies, Rhetoric and Writing, American Studies, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Karma Chavez studies social movement building, activist rhetoric, and coalitional politics. Chavez's work emphasizes the rhetorical practices of groups marginalized within existing power structures, but Chavez also attends to rhetoric produced by powerful institutions and actors about marginalized folks and the systems that oppress them.
Art and Art History, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Ondine Chavoya is a specialist in Chicanx and Latinx art. Chavoya's curatorial projects have addressed issues of collaboration, experimentation, social justice, and archival practices in contemporary art.
Adam Cohen is the Ichthyology Collection Manager for UT Austin's fish collection. Much of the lab's research focuses on the arid southwestern United States and northern Mexico.
Rebecca Cook works with AMPATH Mexico, a model for providing access to health with a mission of care, education and research via collaboration between academic medical centers and universities. She works with a public health medical school, and clinical and community partners to improve the health and well being of communities in Puebla. She also works locally in Austin with community health workers, and has prior experience in working in Africa.
James Cox’s research interests are Native American literature and literary theory, American novels, and ethnic American literactures, including Mexican American literature and the literature of immigration; in particular, Cox focuses on the 20th and 21st centuries of work and the history of Native Americans in American literature and popular culture.
Robert Crosnoe's main research areas are human development, education, family, and health; specifically, the connections among children's, adolescents', and young adults' health, social development, and educational trajectories and how these connections contribute to societal inequalities (e.g., social class, immigration).
Advertising & Public Relations, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Isabella Cunningham's research is in the area of legal and ethical aspects of advertising and promotional communications. In addition, she is particularly interested in the management of the communications effort, which includes media effectiveness and message appeals.
John Daly's interests focus on practical ways of improving the communication and relationship skills of individuals. He examines topics such as influencing skills, interpersonal relations, leadership and network, change management, and has a burgeoning interest in the politics of standardization.
Earth and Planetary Sciences, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Ian Dalziel's research is focused on understanding global tectonic processes and to mapping out the geography of ancient times on a dynamic Earth. His 60 years of field experience have been devoted to work in the British Caledonides, the Canadian Shield, the Andes, and Antarctica.
Penelope Davies specializes in the architectural history of ancient Rome. She has published numerous articles and essays in scholarly publications about Roman art and architecture.
Jaimie Davis' research focuses on designing and disseminating nutrition, physical activity, and behavioral interventions to reduce obesity and related metabolic disorders in overweight minority children and adolescents.
Arturo De Lozanne studies the molecular basis of the lysosomal disorder known as the Chediak-Higashi Syndrome, which results from gene mutation leading to the loss of a protein known as Lyst. His research group is using a wide array of molecular tools available in the model system to dissect the function of Lyst-related proteins. He is also interested in understanding the proteins involved in the eukaryotic cellular process of cytokinesis.
David DeMatthews' research focuses on equitable and inclusive school improvement, with an emphasis on leadership and policy. He aims to understand how districts and schools create equitable and inclusive schools at the intersections of race, social class, language, and other markers of identity.
Tom Devitt studies patterns of geographic variation among populations to understand evolutionary processes such as local adaptation, population divergence, and speciation. One of his primary projects seeks to discover and describe new species of direct-developing frogs (genus Eleutherodactylus) in Mexico.
Anthony Di Fiore conducts long-term behavioral and ecological field research on several species in the primate community of Amazonian Ecuador. He investigates the ways in which ecological conditions (such as the abundance and distribution of food resources) and the strategies of conspecifics together shape primate behavior and social relationships and ultimately determine the various kinds of primate societies.
Spanish & Portuguese, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Héctor Domínguez-Ruvalcaba's research interests are queer Latin American Studies, gender violence in the U.S.-Mexico border and criminal organizations in Mexico.
Law, Human Rights and Justice, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, Jewish Studies
Ariel Dulitzky is a leading expert in human rights, particularly in Latin America and the United Nations and regional (particularly the inter-American) human rights system and enforced disappearances. Dulitzky has published extensively on human rights, the inter-American human rights system, racial discrimination, indigenous rights, the rule of law in Latin America, enforced disappearances, and sports and human rights.
Kenneth Dunton’s research focuses on two main areas. In coast ecosystem processes, his lab evaluates aspects of resilience, such as how changes in regional climate redefine plant species, carbon storage, and benthic community. In aquatic plant ecology, his lab is interested in the light and nutrient requirements for photosynthesis and growth, and how environmental stressors regulate the productivity and distribution of foundation species.
Public Affairs, Middle Eastern Studies, Geography and the Environment, Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies, South Asia Institute, Jewish Studies, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, IC2 Institute
David Eaton's research focuses on sustainable development in international river basins, evaluation of energy and water conservation programs, and prevention of pollution.
Mirasol Enríquez's scholarship focuses on U.S.-based Latina producers of narrative feature films, media production culture, Chicana/o film, and representations of race and gender in media.
Public Affairs, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Raissa Fabregas is an applied microeconomist with research interests in development and labor economics. Her work is primarily related to understanding constraints on learning and the accumulation of human capital in developing countries and evaluating interventions and policies that could mitigate those barriers.
Geography and the Environment, African and African Diaspora Studies
Caroline Faria's research examines three connected strands of work on neoliberal globalization, development, and nationalism. These are: 1) diasporic nationalism, violence and migration, 2) globalizing beauty trade networks, and 3) global retail capital and urban displacement. Her research focuses on Uganda and Mexico.
Lauren Fielder is an expert on international and constitutional law, including the internationalization of constitutional law and transnational law and human rights. She has written on African law and policy, gender and customary law, restitution of art and cultural property, and religion as empowerment, among other topics.
Art and Art History, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
George Flaherty’s research and teaching focuses primarily on modern and contemporary art, architecture, and film, focusing on Mexico, the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, and their diasporas in the United States. He is also interested in Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx studies, postcolonial and subaltern studies, and the urban humanities.
Peter Flemings studies fluid pressure and leads an industry-supported research consortium that combines geomechanical modeling, experimental analysis, and field study to study pore pressure and fluid flow in basins. In addition, his research group studies methanes hydrates by simulating them in the lab and modeling their formation, and also studies the permeability and deformation of mudstones.
Tracey Flores' research focuses on Latina mothers and daughters, language and literacy practices, the teaching of young writers in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, and family and community literacies.
Sociology, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Daniel Fridman is interested in the intersections of economy and culture, neoliberalism and financialization, economic policy in Latin America, consumer culture, gift-giving, the sociology of money, and the construction of economic subjects.
Liliana Garces’ scholarship focuses on the intersection of law and educational policy on access, diversity, and equity in higher education. Her work employs quantitative, qualitative and legal research methods and draws from frameworks across multiple disciplines to tackle the complex nature of racial and ethnic inequality in K-12 and higher education.
Alexandra Garcia's research focuses on the social, cultural, and economic influences on health and equity, diabetes self-management and symptom experience of Mexican Americans with type 2 diabetes.
Public Affairs, Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies
Sergio Garcia-Rios' research investigates the formation and transformation of Latino identities as well as the political implications of these transformations. He also examines voter turnout, political participation and public opinion, especially among Latino immigrants. His other academic interests include issues related to Latinos and the Voting Rights Act, border issues and border research, and the politics of Mexico.
James Gardner's research focuses on the physical and chemical aspects of volcanic eruptions and magmatic processes. One side involves studying active centers and their deposits, including understanding the dynamics of caldera-forming eruptions. A second area utilizes experiments to determine the contents of volatiles in magmas, the degassing of those volatiles from magmas, and the control of such behavior on eruptions and formation of ore bodies.
Geography and the Environment, Anthropology, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Thomas Garrison’s research interests include remote sensing, Maya civilization, landscape archaeology, Mesoamerican archaeology, and geographic information systems.
Thomas Garza's research interests include a longitudinal study of Russian youth culture, comparative work on masculinity in contemporary Russia and Mexico, the vampire myth in Slavic cultures, Russian language teaching methodology, and applied linguistics.
Information, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Edgar Gómez-Cruz has published widely on several topics relating to digital and algorithmic culture in top journals, particularly in the areas of material visual practices, digital ethnography, and critical approaches to digital technologies. His research focuses on the datafication and automation of everyday life in the Latin America, using a decolonizing approach.
John Morán González's research focuses on Latinx literature in a trans-American and trans-Atlantic context. He has written about post-Reconstruction U.S. literature, Mexican American literature during the 1930s, and the linguistic politics of contemporary Dominican American writers. He is a founding member of the award-winning public history project Refusing to Forget, which explores state violence in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands during the 1910s.
Laura Gonzalez's research focuses on basic and applied population and community ecology of marine and terrestrial organisms. Gonzalez is interested in the effect that the spatial dynamics of populations have on population productivity and on limiting species geographic ranges. In collaboration with other scientists, she has used phylogeographic approaches to understand the dispersal of marine invertebrates across their geographic range.
Celeste González de Bustamante's research focuses on historical and contemporary issues related to media in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, Mexico, and other parts of Latin America. She also is advancing research about Filipina/o/x American communities and media in the 20th-century.
Maria Gonzalez-Howard's research explores the intersections of teaching and learning science with bilingualism development. Specifically, she focuses on supporting culturally and linguistically diverse students' engagement in science practices.
Francisco Gonzalez-Lima's lab focuses on the mission to prevent neurocognitive and emotional disorders, understand the underlying brain mechanisms, and advance innovative non-invasive treatments. Areas of research interest include transcranial infrared brain stimulation, near infrared spectroscopy, neurocognitive enhancement, mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase, dementia, bipolar disorder and neurotherapeutics.
Sociology, Latin American Studies, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Gloria González-López focuses on sexuality, gender, Mexican American and Mexican studies, and social inequality. Her research is inspired by feminist theorizing and research in the social sciences whereby sexuality is considered a prism through which to explore institutional dynamics in the areas of religion, education, law, family, culture and politics. She also works with professionals promoting the eradication of sexual violence in Mexico.
Rachel González-Martin's research focuses on the cultural practice and class formation in U.S. Latinx communities, focusing on women, youth, and queer-identifying communities. González-Martin explores the vast body of verbal and material traditions of coming-of-age communities in the American Latino diaspora.
Stephanie Grasso investigates neurologically-based communication disorders within the context of bilingualism. She aims to establish the efficacy of treatment approaches for bilingual adults with aphasia and utilizes neuroimaging to investigate variability in treatment responsiveness. Grasso also examines bilingualism as a contributor to cognitive reserve in neurodegenerative disorders affecting language and cognition.
Art and Art History, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Julia Guernsey's research and publications focus on the Middle and Late Pre-classic periods in ancient Mesoamerica, in particular on the dynamics of urbanism and social and political identity. Guernsey also continues to participate on the La Blanca Archaeological Project, which is exploring this large site that dominated the Pacific coastal and piedmont region of Guatemala during the Middle Pre-classic period.
Earth and Planetary Sciences, Institute for Geophysics
Sean Gulick focuses on geophysical imaging at nested resolutions and scientific drilling to examine impact cratering, tectonic processes, climate interactions, catastrophism in the geologic record, and planetary habitability. Current foci are the Chicxulub K-Pg impact and terrestrial craters, impact hydrothermal systems and planetary habitability, Lunar/Martian geophysics, tectonic hazards, and hi-res imaging for sedimentary climate records.
Laura Gutierrez's primary research and teaching areas of interest are: Latin American, Mexican and Latina/o embodied practices, gender and sexuality, and questions of nation, modernity and the transnational.
Law, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Patricia Hansen's research interests include international trade and investment, regional economic integration, environmental protection, consumer protection, international economic law, judicial reform and judicial independence in Latin America, and federal civil procedure.
Michael Harney's research focuses on medieval and Renaissance Spanish Literature, comparative literature, literary theory, cultural theory, and film studies.
Anthropology, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
John Hartigan is an anthropologist seeking to theorize sociality across species lines by contemplating multispecies perspectives in the field. He has investigated multispecies ethnography with wild horses, looked at the anthropology of science via botany and plant genomics, considered bullfighting in, and examined ethnography of race (theories, methods, and practice, with an attention to cultural articulations of whiteness).
John Hasenbein's research interests lie primarily in the area of stochastic modeling, especially of complex manufacturing, computer, and telecommunication network systems.
Integrative Biology, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Dean Hendrickson's research focuses on the evolution, conservation and ecology of freshwater ecosystems, particularly those of North American deserts and generally with emphasis on fishes and Mexico.
Social Work, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Mercedes Hernandez's research interests are informed by her extensive clinical practice experience in community mental health settings and focus on mental health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities with a particular emphasis on Latinos with serious mental illness and their families including early intervention services for individuals experiencing first-episode psychosis.
Sharon Herzka conducts research on physical and biogeochemical process that produce primary and secondary production Loop Current mesoscale eddies in the Gulf of Mexico, distribution of yellowfin tuna, artisanal fishing gleet targeting yellowtail in Los Angeles Bay and in the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica.
Mauricio Hong's research focuses on the treatment of ventricular arrhythmias in patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators. His previous research includes the monitoring of guided anticoagulation on stroke risk and trials with the goal of reducing inappropriate shocks.
Medicine, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Kristine Hopkins' research focuses on reproductive health issues in Texas, the U.S.-Mexico border, and Latin America. Hopkins focuses on studying the availability of contraception among women in the postpartum period, access to health services among women in community colleges, and health care organizations' ability to provide family planning services.
Simon Humphrey's research involves organometallic chemistry, focusing on nanoparticles as catalysts; phosphine coordination materials for gas storage, separation, and catalysis; noble metal nanoparticles; and composite catalyst materials.
Wendy Hunter's research focuses on comparative politics, with an emphasis on Latin American affairs. Her interests are social policy issues in Latin America and politics of education and health reform.
Architecture, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Benjamin Ibarra Sevilla's research involves case studies of ancient mason techniques, stereotomy, descriptive geometry, and architectural geometry informed by form-resistant structures.
Rhetoric and Writing, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, American Studies, Communication Studies
José Izaguirre’s work specializes in public rhetorics, rhetorical histories, and the aesthetics of politics, exploring how de/coloniality, race and political power influence formulations of Latinx political identities in various situations. His research makes use of a variety of tools to revisit, expand, challenge, and conventional histories, which situates his work within the fields of Latinx studies, social movement(s), and rhetorical theory.
Shalene Jha's lab investigates ecological and evolutionary processes from genes to landscapes, to quantify global change impacts on plant-animal interactions, movement ecology, and the provisioning of ecosystem services. More specifically, the lab investigates how global land use change influences gene flow, foraging patterns, and population viability for plants and animals.
African and African Diaspora Studies, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Mónica Jiménez's teaching and research explores the intersections of law, race and nationalism in U.S. empire building in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Shardha Jogee's research seeks to address central questions on the evolution of galaxies as a function of cosmic epoch, mass, and environment. These include how galaxies grow their stars, black holes, and dark matter halos across cosmic time and vastly different environments, the role played by theoretically predicted growth modes, and how galaxy clusters, some of the largest bound structures in the Universe, form.
Octavio Kano-Galván's work focuses on developing and implementing responsive and interactive multimedia designs and advertising campaigns that include print media, art direction, photography, 3D motion graphics, and social media.
Timothy Keitt's lab focuses on computational and quantitative ecology with an emphasis on ecological self-organization, macroecology/biogeography, and habitat connectivity. His research program uses modeling to scale-up microecological mechanisms related to individual traits and physical processes to predict macroecological outcomes, such as population persistence, community organization, ecosystem function, and climate change impacts.
Spanish & Portuguese, Marketing, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Orlando Kelm is a linguistics professional whose interests center on the use of language and culture for professional purposes, such as Business Spanish & Portuguese. Kelm's research focuses on the creation of instructional materials, including the use of innovative technologies in foreign language instruction.
Charles Kerans' areas of focus are carbonate sequence stratigraphy and reservoir characterization, with an emphasis on integrating outcrop analog information for improved understanding of the subsurface.
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Medicine
Kerry Kinney's research examines the relationships between environmental exposures (microorganisms, allergens and chemicals), human health and the built environment, microbiome of the built environment (e.g., schools, homes), development and application of molecular tools for monitoring engineered and natural systems, biological treatment systems for water and wastewater.
Harold Kohl's research focuses on the area of physical activity and health, including conducting research, developing and evaluating intervention programs for adults and children, and developing and advising on policy issues.
Brian Korgel's research centers on the development of new methods for synthesizing nanostructured materials, fabricating devices based upon these materials, and studying their properties. The lab group focuses on investigating size-tunable material properties, and the rational self-assembly and fabrication of nanostructures with atomic detail. This research finds applications in microelectronics and photonics, spintronics, coatings, sensors and
Meeta Kothare's research interests include social innovation and the use of financial tools for social impact. Her areas of expertise include impact investing, impact measurement, social entrepreneurship and social enterprise.
Chemical Engineering, Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Manish Kumar's research group is interested in mimicking biological processes and materials at the molecular scale, particularly cell membrane components, to develop materials and processes that bring the specificity and functionality of biological molecules and processes to engineering scales.
Yuliya Lanina is a multimedia artist whose works exist at the intersection of visual, performing arts, and technological innovation, and explore social issues like gender perception, sexuality, loss, and motherhood. Her work has been exhibited and performed around the world.
Gaëlle Le Calvez House's primary research interests address two main topics: late 20th- and 21st-century transnational movements and contemporary forms of writing. Her writing explores the intersections between writing and politics in contemporary Mexico.
Government, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
David Leal's primary academic interest is Latino politics, and his work explores the political and policy implications of demographic change. He studies questions involving Latino electoral behavior and public opinion; the politics of migration and borders; the role of religion in politics; the military and society; and British politics and U.S.-U.K. relations.
Public Affairs, Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Stephanie Leutert's research interests focus on U.S. immigration and border policy, Mexican migration policy, and the effects at the U.S.-Mexico border. Specifically, she looks at migration dynamics and risks to migrants in Northern Mexico and South Texas.
Spanish & Portuguese, Jewish Studies, Comparative Literature, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Naomi Lindstrom carries out research in the intersection of Latin American studies, gender studies, and Jewish studies. She is the author of books and articles on 19th-, 20th-, and 21-century Latin American literature. Her work focuses on Latin American Jewish Studies, film, graphic narrative, and the comparative study of Jewish life in the Americas. She is also a literary translator and organizes a lecture series.
Fernando Llanos is interested in the neural processing of speech categories by monolinguals, bilinguals, and second-language learners. He investigates these topics using behavioral methods, neuroimaging, brain stimulation, and machine learning. He aims to develop computational and neurobiologically-informed models to test theoretical predictions on speech processing, improve the acquisition of new languages, and inform clinical treatments.
Geography and the Environment, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Sheryl Luzzader-Beach specializes in physical geography, hydrology and geomorphology, water chemistry, geoarchaeology, geostatistics, and gender, science and human rights.
Social Work, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Sandy Magaña's research focus is on the cultural context of families who care for persons with disabilities across the life course. Her research includes investigating racial and ethnic disparities among children with autism and developmental disabilities, and developing culturally relevant interventions to address this. Magaña has worked on cultural adaptation of an intervention for families of children with autism in Colombia and Paraguay.
Bryanna Mantilla is a rheumatologist. Mantilla's research centers on bringing a sociological and structural critical lens to the practice of rheumatology. Their research seeks to examine health inequalities for historically excluded and diverse patients living with axial spondyloarthritis, especially with regards to the role of racial-ethnic disparities and social determinants of health in delay to diagnosis and provision of advanced therapies.
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Lance Manuel's research is related to uncertainty quantification associated with the safety of civil engineering, energy-generation and ocean systems. His work is being used to improve the design of wind turbines for complex inflow turbulence conditions and in enhanced the long-term reliability of deepwater floating structures. His work is also examining climate impacts on infrastructure systems and related hazard, risk, and resilience studies.
History, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Alberto Martínez's research interests include the history of physics (especially Einstein's special theory of relativity), the history of mathematics, and historical myths in science. He also researches the history of notions of race, myths in political news media, and episodes in the history of money and corruption.
History, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Monica Martinez's research interests include topics such as the U.S.-Mexico border, race and memory, public history, and border policing. One of her primary investigations is the histories of racial violence in Texas. Her research project documents multiple forms of violence (at the hands of law enforcement, U.S. soldiers, and vigilantes) that targeted multiple racial and ethnic groups.
Spanish & Portuguese, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Kelly McDonough's research interests include critical Indigenous studies, Latin American literatures and Native intellectual histories with emphasis on Mexico from Spanish colonialism to the present. She is also interested in ethnohistory like Nahuatl studies, along with Indigenous science, technology, society, and digital humanities.
Tim Mercer is interested in solving health system challenges and promoting health through community-engaged scholarship and service to improve access, quality and equity in health for vulnerable populations. He implements and evaluates health system and community-based programs and conducts implementation research. He leads the development of equitable academic global health partnerships to promote health equity and improve population health.
Carlos Mery specializes in the management of children and adults with congenital heart disease, including simple and complex congenital heart defects. His academic interests include clinical outcomes research and the early development of medical technology and has written extensively on cardiothoracic surgery.
Julie Minich's research explores how Latina/o cultural production depicts public conflict around legislation governing health care and disability accommodations, and uncovers the social context in which individuals make health decisions to show how health and disease are determined by factors that cannot entirely be reduced to questions of individual choice.
Pablo Montero-Zamora's research focuses on the influence of context, parents, and peers on Latino youth substance use and mental health. He studies how factors such as cultural stressors, migration, and social norms shape family dynamics, resulting in youth behaviors. His work aims to improve the development, implementation, and evaluation of culturally adapted interventions tailored to serve Latino families in the U.S. and Latin America.
Musicology & Ethnomusicology, African and African Diaspora Studies
Robin Moore's primary research interests include music and nationalism, music curriculum reform, music and race relations, popular music study, socialist art aesthetics, the music of Cuba and Latin America, and university music curricula.
Ulrich Mueller studies molecular ecology of organismal interactions. His research focuses currently on two projects: (a) population biology of fungus-growing ants, their cultivated fungi, and associated microbial mutualists; (b) microbiome breeding (artificial selection on microbiomes) to improve health of crop plants and bees.
Luisa Nardini specializes in digital humanities, pre- and early-modern women, global studies, and sacred music. Her studies on medieval and early-modern women are focused on women's access to music education, spaces of music creativity, and interactions with male counterparts. She also writes on global early musics.
Charles Nemeroff's research is focused on the pathophysiology of mood and anxiety disorders with a focus on the role of child abuse and neglect as a major risk factor. His research also examines the role of mood disorders as a risk factor for major medical disorders including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
Government, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Daniel Nielson's research focuses on international development, foreign aid, the control of corruption, and international organization. He specializes in the use of transnational field experiments to learn about causal effects in political economy.
Guido Olivieri's research is focused on the developments of string sonata in the 18th-century, investigating aspects of performance practice, musical patronage, and reconstructing the cultural relationships between Naples and other European capitals. His research - conducted mainly on unknown archival sources and overlooked repertory - has significantly contributed to the revival of interest on Neapolitan instrumental music and musicians.
Yolanda Padilla’s research has focused on advancing the understanding of poverty and how that informs the development of social welfare policy. She examines the consequences of poverty for Latino children and families with a focus on health and development in early childhood, the social and economic conditions of living on the U.S.-Mexico border region, and factors associated with socioeconomic disadvantage among Latinos, including immigration.
Integrative Biology, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Jose Panero is interested in the distribution, diversity, and evolution of flowering plants. His research focuses on the elucidation of phylogenetic relationships among neotropical members of the sunflower family using traditional and molecular techniques. Another important activity of the lab is the documentation of the floristic diversity of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.
Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, Kinesiology and Health Education, Medicine
Deborah Parra-Medina’s research is centered around health promotion, public health epidemiology, health disparities in chronic disease, and community-based interventions among under-served and minority populations.
Public Affairs, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Raj Patel is a research professor who studies the world food system and alternatives to it. He has testified about hunger and food sovereignty, and has written about food systems, economics, philosophy, politics, international development, and public health.
James Patton's areas of activity include transition assessment and planning, differentiating instruction for students with special needs, study skills instruction, needs of college students with learning-related challenges, and issues associated with individual with disabilities who encounter the criminal justice system.
Steven Pedigo is an expert in urban economic development, regional cooperation and placemaking. Pedigo has developed strategies for more than 50 cities and regions in the United States and other countries.
Domino Perez specializes in young adult fiction, Mexican-American and Latinx literature, 20th- and 21st-century American literature, film, popular culture, and cultural studies.
Spanish & Portuguese, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, American Studies, Human Rights and Justice
Adela Pineda Franco's scholarly work situates the study of specific literary and cinematic phenomena within transnational contexts and comparative, interdisciplinary frameworks, addressing the relationships between culture, politics, intellectual thought, and technology.
Kinesiology and Health Education, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Miguel Pinedo's research focuses on how different migration experiences contribute to health disparities, particularly among Latino populations. His work investigates social- and structural-level factors associated with migration to the U.S., including voluntary and forced migration, domestic migration within Mexico, and migration to high-risk environments related to the epidemiology of substance abuse, HIV risk, and related harms.
Spanish & Portuguese, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Gabriela Polit's research interest is the exploration of fantasy in contemporary women's literary and film production. She analyzes how drive and grief operate in the creation of art.
Geography and the Environment, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Molly Polk specializes in land change science in the tropical mountains of Latin America. In Peru, her works uses the Andean wetlands to investigate the relationships between glacial recession, landscape change, and human activity. In Chile, she is looking at the connections among the expansion of non-native forest plantations, internal migration, and the transformation of rural space.
Daniel Powers is interested in health disparities, with specific focus on the Hispanic infant mortality paradox and race/ethnic comparisons of change in infant mortality over time. Most of his work is intertwined with methodological interests in survival modeling, regression decomposition, and other methods. His research documents an erosion of the Mexican-origin infant survival advantage with increasing maternal age.
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Jorge Prozzi and his research team have ongoing experimental research on testing and behavior of road building materials, such as the design and rehabilitation of pavements, asphalt technology, accelerated pavement testing, and pavement management systems. His research involves mechanistic and empirical design and applications of probability and statistics to pavement engineering problems.
Linguistics, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
David Quinto-Pozos' research concentrates on child and adult acquisition of signed language, constructed action, language contact and change, and signed-spoken language interpretation. Primary languages in Quinto-Pozos's studies include American Sign Language, Brazilian Sign Language, Mexican Sign Language, English, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Geography and the Environment, History, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Carlos Ramos' major interests are in the field of hydro-geomorphology, or the study of the interactions among humans, land forms, land-shaping processes, and both surface and near-surface hydrologic processes from the perspective of natural hazards, soil/water/coral reef conservation, and watershed management.
Ramesh Rao is interested in the areas of asset pricing, informational asymmetry, corporate finance, and the interface between finance and marketing operations.
Cory Reed's research focuses on early modern theatrical performance, including the representation of identity in 16th- and 17th-century literature, literary and cultural responses to the emergence of scientific discourse in early modern Spain, and cognitive cultural studies. His teaching includes studying historical moments of cultural contact in Spain, Mexico, and the American southwest.
Educational Leadership and Policy, Educational Psychology, Public Affairs
Pedro Reyes is passionate about teaching and research on student success. He is an expert on higher education organization, leadership, and management. His research is focused on the intersection of policy and leadership that facilitate student success, including culturally and linguistically diverse, and often marginalized students, such as urban students, language learners, migrant students, and border students, among others.
Journalism and Media, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez's research interests include the intersection of oral history and journalism, and U.S. Latinos and the news media as both producers of news and as consumers.
Nestor Rodriguez’s research focuses on Guatemalan migration, U.S. deportations to Mexico and Central America, the unauthorized migration of unaccompanied minors, evolving relations between Latinos and African Americans/Asian Americans, and ethical and human rights issues of border enforcement.
Annette Rodríguez 's research interests focus on the functions of public violence in U.S. empire and nation building, U.S. racial formation, immigration, and the production of U.S. citizenship.
Anthropology, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría's research interests are in areas of archaeology, history, ethnohistory, Mesoamerica, the Spanish empire in Latin America, Mexico, Puerto Rico, archaeometry, colonialism, religious conversion, and food.
Spanish & Portuguese, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Sergio Romero specializes in linguistic anthropology, variationist sociolinguistics, language contact, Mesoamerican philology, and Mayan languages Nahuatl and Aymara. His primary research project examines Christian translation in the Mayan highlands and Mayan migration to the U.S.
Astrid Runggaldier is a Mesoamericanist interested in Maya culture and in anthropological approaches to architecture, households, and built environments in the context of the ancient civilizations of the Americas.
Integrative Biology, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Michael Ryan's research focuses on animal behavior. Most of Ryan's work has addressed sexual selection and communication in frogs and fish. Ryan is especially interested in integrating an understanding of the mechanisms of communication involved in mate attraction with the evolutionary consequences of sexual selection.
Michael Sadler's research includes the current status of the U.S. and global economy, financial markets analysis, macroeconomics, macroeconomic policy, monetary economics, and growth theory.
Victor Saenz's research interests are higher education policy issues, educational benefits of racial/ethnic diversity, desegregation issues, access, transition, and retention issues for underrepresented college students, policy impacts of affirmative action and remedial education policies, and assessment issues in higher education (learning outcomes).
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Salvatore Salamone's research interests are structural health monitoring, non-destructive evaluation, resilience of structural systems subject to earthquakes, ultrasonic sensing methods for smart structures, wave propagation in solids, digital signal processing and pattern recognition, dynamics and vibrations of structural systems, and piezoelectric energy harvesting.
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Navid Saleh's research interests include fundamental aggregation and deposition behavior of nanomaterials, nanomaterials for environmental remediation, engineering application of nanomaterials (composite materials, sensors), and engineering education.
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Lina Sela's research interests are centered on intelligent urban water systems involving optimal design and operation, fault diagnostic and prediction, resilient networks, and advanced analytics to make more informed decisions from integrated sensing and data collection.
Suzanne Seriff's interests center on issues of museum representation, public folklore and folklife, Jewish museums and material multure, folk arts and social change, public culture and global folk arts.
Spanish & Portuguese, African and African Diaspora Studies, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Sandro Sessarego works in contact linguistics, sociolinguistics and syntax. He studies Afro-Latino Vernaculars of the Americas (ALVA), languages in Latin America developed from contact of African languages, Spanish and Portuguese in colonial times. His research aims at examining the status of unofficial languages to understand how language policy impact minority groups, with a focus on speakers of ALVA, creoles, indigenous languages, etc.
Kyle Spikes’ interests involve the integration of geologic information with quantitative tools for seismic reservoir characterization. This area of research includes both forward and inverse problems, which combine rock physics, stochastic geologic modeling, seismic inversion, and wave-propagation modeling.
Keri Stephens' research program examines the role of technology in organizational practices and organizing processes, especially in contexts of crisis, disaster, and health.
Daniel Stockli's research focuses on the application of thermochronology and geochronology to tectonic and geological problems to better understand the temporal and thermal aspects of tectonic, petrologic, stratigraphic, and geomorphologic processes. In addition, he investigates geo- and thermochronometry technique development, calibration, and bench marking, with special emphasis on development of new thermochronmeters and novel applications.
Art and Art History, Anthropology, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
David Stuart's research includes the traditional cultures of Mesoamerica with a focus on the archaeology and epigraphy of ancient Maya civilization, decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing, and the art and epigraphy at Copan (Honduras), Palenque (Mexico), Piedras Negras, La Corona, and San Bartolo (Guatemala).
Geography and the Environment, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Amy Thompson uses transdisciplinary approaches of geospatial methods with traditional archaeological techniques to assess wealth inequality, differential access to resources, and community formation among the ancient and modern Maya communities. With the help of geographic information systems, she models smaller social communities of the past, such as neighborhoods and districts that existed within ancient cities.
Geography and the Environment, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Rebecca Torres' areas of interest include immigration, children/youth, and feminist geography, and activist/engaged scholarship. She has collaborated with a bi-national, trans-disciplinary team of scholars focusing on the current situation of refugee/migrant children and youth from Mexico and Central America.
Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, Geological Sciences
Carlos Torres-Verdin’s research is focused to the petrophysical, geophysical, mechanical, and geological description and quantification of the near-borehole region from core samples, geophysical measurements, and in-situ permanent sensors.
Curriculum and Instruction, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies
Luis Urrieta's research focuses on cultural and racial identities, agency as social and cultural practices, social movements and collective action related to education, and learning in family and community contexts. He is interested in Chicanx, Latinx, and indigenous cultures and identities, activism as a social practice in education, oral and narrative traditions in research, and indigenous knowledge systems and research methodologies.
Social Work, Medicine, Mexican American and Latino/a Studies, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Carmen Valdez's research interests include mental health promotion and intervention with Latinx immigrant families and the role of social policy, neighborhood and family factors on immigrant health. Valdez aims to address health equity through partnerships, community-grounded research and mentoring of health equity scholars.
Educational Leadership and Policy, Curriculum and Instruction, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Angela Valenzuela's research includes the sociology of education, minority youth in schools, educational policy, urban education reform, culturally relevant curriculum, ethnic studies, and indigenous education.
Antonio Vasquez’s academic research interests focus mostly on the significance of ethnic Mexican and Latina/o organizational formations and social movements, with attention to the southern U.S.
Theatre and Dance, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, Spanish & Portuguese, Native American and Indigenous Studies, LGBTQ Studies
Enzo Vasquez Toral is a Peruvian performer, scholar and educator whose expertise lies in the intersection of theatre and performance studies, queer and trans* studies and Indigenous studies in Latin/x America. As a theorist, practitioner and ethnographer, he engages with a transdisciplinary and decolonizing approach to research that centers performance as a site of alternative worldmaking.
Veronica Walker's expertise focuses on older adults diagnosed with schizophrenia. Walker's work strives to eradicate or mitigate the stigma commonly associated with this population by teaching safe, respectful, appropriate communication techniques for communicating with adults diagnosed with schizophrenia in many major psychiatric facilities.
Linguistics, Anthropology, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Anthony Woodbury focuses on indigenous languages of the Americas and what they reveal about linguistic diversity. Woodbury is engaged in the documentation and description of Chatino, an language group of Oaxaca, Mexico. Themes in his writing have included tone and prosody, morphology, syntax, historical linguistics, ethnopoetics, language endangerment and preservation, and documentary linguistics.
Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering
Guihua Yu's researches design and synthesis of functional nano-architectured materials, like organic and hybrid organic-inorganic nanomaterials, understanding of their chemical and physical properties, and development of large-scale assembly and integration methodologies to enable important applications in energy, environment and sustainability, e.g. fast-charging batteries, electrocatalysis, solar water purification, critical mineral recovery.
History, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Emilio Zamora’s research interests include the history of Mexicans in the U.S. and their relationship with Mexico, as well as the oral history, the history of the U.S. working class, Texas history, and the archival enterprise in Texas and northern Mexico.
Julie Zuniga's area of research is self-management of chronic illnesses for underserved populations, with a focus on the impact of the social determinants of health.
Partnerships
Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP)
Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfia, A.C.
Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS)
COMEXUS Mexican Chair
Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH)
Fundación Mexicana para la Educación (FUNED)
Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM)
Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey
Participate in Mexico City's Texas Exes International Chapter to stay connected to UT, meet fellow alumni, participate in a variety of activities and programs, cultivate professional relationships, and find opportunities to engage in the local community.
Participate in Monterrey's Texas Exes International Chapter to stay connected to UT, meet fellow alumni, participate in a variety of activities and programs, cultivate professional relationships, and find opportunities to engage in the local community.
