University of Houston, Hispanic Studies

Valentina Jager

Valentina Jager Lopezllera is a visual artist, writer, and translator from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Her artistic practice, developed mostly in sculpture, performance, and writing, is material-oriented and site-specific. A Ph.D. candidate in Creative Writing in Spanish at the University of Houston, her current research titled “Field Guide to Sam Houston National Forest” studies the intersection of prison geographies, administered natural space, and tourism by walking throughout the surrounding forests of the city of Huntsville, Texas. She received an MA in Art in Context from the Berlin University of the Arts, focusing on public art, public memorial culture, and artistic research as a practice and methodology. Since 2012 when she first encountered it, Valentina has become a Butoh enthusiast.

University of Texas-Austin, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies

M. Roxana Loza

M. Roxana Loza is from Mexico City and came to the U.S. (documented) when she was 11 years old, the same age as Gaby from the one of the middle grade books she discusses in her dissertation. Her B.A. from Rice University is in English, French, and Psychology. She got her M.A. at Kansas State in Children's Literature. She is happily ABD at UT Austin with a dissertation project about contemporary Latinx children's and YA literature that connects various fictional narratives of immigration with contemporary immigration policies and with scholarship from disability studies, mad studies, and trauma studies. She has loved books since arriving in the U.S. because they were easier to understand than English-speaking peers, and taught public school Spanish Kindergarten. She's a proud mami to a 1-year-old daughter and learning how to juggle grad school and parenting. While motherhood during grad school is a struggle, she's blessed with a very supportive husband and family.

University of California, Los Angeles, World 

Arón Montenegro

Arón Montenegro (he/him/winaq) is a first-gen and formerly incarcerated PhD candidate in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance focusing on the role of visual and performance art in addressing intergenerational trauma among migrant communities. As a street artist who creates murals, ‘zines, screen prints and theatre skits, his research is informed by creative practices facilitated outside of institutional settings. Prior to attending UCLA, Aron was an independent journalist covering land conflicts in Central America and successfully stopped the construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in his hometown of El Monte, CA. As a survivor of physical and psychological abuse by the U.S. trained military in Honduras, Aron uses art to work through his personal traumas. Collective memory and intracommunal solidarity are themes used consistently through his creative and scholarly endeavors.

University of California, Los Angeles, Chicana/o and Central American Studies

Brenda Selena Lara

Brenda Selena Lara (she/they/ella) is a doctoral candidate at UCLA's Cesar Chavez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. Born and raised in Huntington Park, CA, Brenda is a first-generation student, raised by a strong, hardworking Mexican mother who taught her feminist values. Her upbringing influences her historical and theoretical research analyzing LGBTQ+ Latinxs' lives, knowledge, deaths, and cultural depictions. Through her research, she theorizes the significance of epistemic haunting as a framework for understanding queer Latinxs' knowledge and the social violence they face. Brenda Lara’s projects have been awarded the Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship, the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies Fellowship, UCLA's Dissertation Year Fellowship, and the IUPLR/UIC Mellon Dissertation Fellowship. Alongside her graduate work, she is a councilmember for UCLA's First-Generation Graduate Student Council and the editor for Queer Cats: A Journal of LGBTQ Studies.

University of Illinois-Chicago, Department of Criminology, Law and Justice

Lisa Jahn

Luz