I am an Assistant Professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University. I am also an Affiliated Faculty of the Center for Latina/os and American Politics Research, I serve as the Tempe Campus Representative for the Faculty Women of Color Caucus at ASU. I am an active member of the Organizations and their Effectiveness research collective, based in the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

I earned my PhD in the Department of Government at Harvard University. My dissertation, “The Domestic and International Politics of U.S. Immigration Policy” was awarded the prize for the best dissertation on a topic of Race, Ethnicity, or Migration and Politics by the Department of Government at Harvard University.

During my time as a doctoral student, I was a doctoral fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy, and the Immigration Initiative at Harvard. My research has also received support from the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego, the Ford Foundation Fellowship, and the APSA Minority Fellows Program.

I have experience teaching courses regarding borders and immigration, survey methodology, and qualitative research methods. I was awarded the 2019 Derek C. Bok Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching of Undergraduates (Harvard University) and the 2023 Michael Mitchell Outstanding Teaching Award (Arizona State University). I also have experience teaching adult immigrant learners in Houston, TX and Boston, MA.

As a first-generation college student, I attended Rice University, from where I earned a B.A. in Political Science and Policy Studies. As an undergraduate student, I received support from the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, and the Hispanic Scholarship Consortium.

I am the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants from San Luis Potosí, and I am grateful for the support from my hometown, Lockhart, Texas. I shared a bit about my journey from Lockhart, Texas to profesora in a conversation with the Weatherhead Center.