Stephanie Calderón Vásquez, BA
Stephanie is a 2^nd year MA student in the Liberal Studies program with a concentration of Latin America, Caribbean, and US Latino Studies. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her research interests are in immigration, literature, popular culture, and public policy. Her thesis explores to understand the expectations immigration policy creates for communities and whether they are realistic upon comparing to the US culture.

Valentina Floegel
Valentina is a 1^st year M.A. student in the International Migration Studies program at the CUNY Graduate Center. She holds an M.A. in Global Studies from Sophia University. Her research focuses on labor immigration, asylum seekers, and access to rights for immigrants in South America—specifically Chile. She is a volunteer for RIF and Safe Passage Project in NYC and works as a research assistant for Baruch College professors Sarah Bishop and Els de Graauw. Twitter: @poliwagg

Marcela F. González, PhD
Marcela F. González, PhD is a sociologist, researcher, and educator. She works on issues of immigration, poverty, inequality, race, and ethnicity. In her dissertation research, she studied high skilled immigration in the US. She currently conducts research on cross-national comparison of child poverty in twelve middle-income countries. Marcela can be reached at me: [email protected]

Maeve Higgins
Maeve Higgins is contributing writer for The New York Times and co-host of the climate justice podcast Mothers of Invention with Mary Robinson. Her book of essays ‘Maeve in America’ was published by Penguin in 2018. She created and produced the podcast ‘Maeve in America: Immigration IRL’ in 2017 to cover migration in Trump’s America. She is a second year Master’s student at CUNY Graduate Center where her research interests are borders, walls, and the nation state. Twitter @maevehiggins

Emily Lopez
Emily Lopez is a community activist, educator and learner for over 37 years. In her various roles, she is a learner of the multifaceted approach to community organizing and advocacy. Currently, she is the Director of the Family Enrichment Center at Graham-Windham. She is directly responsible for the new initiative that builds protective factors through an Appreciative Inquiry model. She was also founder and Board Co-Chair of Casa Atabex Ache a non-profit created for Women of Color in the South Bronx. An alternative healing technique center that created leaders, advocates and a self-healing community of color in the South Bronx. Along with the creation of Casa Atabex Ache she developed Fuerza/Power program. Fuerza/Power a peer-led community activist program for young women of color geared towards affecting issues of poverty, health and education. Her work includes Adjunct Professor of Ethnic Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She taught Puerto Rican and Latino History in the United States and Race and Ethnic Studies in America. She is the recipient of the Union Square Award through the Fund for the City of New York for the creation of Casa Atabex Ache. She was a fellow of the Next Generation Leadership Rockefeller/NYU Fellowship program, Robert Bowne Research Fellow, and Ford Foundation Latino Leadership Fellow.  Through her work in the NYU Fellowship, she participated in the Cooperative Inquiry Education consortium. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate in the Social Welfare program at the CUNY Graduate Center. 

Ricardo Martin Coloma
Ricardo Martin Coloma is a Ph.D. Student at the Graduate Center, CUNY interested in Latinx Studies. He received a B.Arch.+ M.Arch. (Arquitecto Superior) from Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Spain) and MA in Spanish/Latin-American Literature from Universidad de Barcelona (Spain). He is currently teaching Latinx Cultures at Brooklyn College, CUNY, and Practice Writing in Spanish at The City College, CUNY. His research interests include Diaspora Cultures, Performance Studies, Migration, Urban Agriculture, Politics of Space, and Barrio Urbanism.  He worked as a Research Assistant at the urban research group Terreform One. You can reach Ricardo at [email protected]

Yan Matusevich
Yan Matusevich is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in Cultural Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center. He holds a master’s degree in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the link between migrant labor and transnational supply chains, particularly in the context of food production and manufacturing. His research project looks at the experiences of Central Asian migrant workers living and working in depopulating rural areas of modern-day Russia. Prior to starting his Ph.D., Yan worked as a migration policy researcher at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (Vienna, Austria) as well as a freelance journalist focusing on topics related youth, migration and popular culture in the post-Soviet space.          Twitter @ymatusik