Abbreviated Curriculum Vitae
[updated 2024]
EDUCATION
2014 Ph.D. Ethnic Studies, University of California at Berkeley
2009 M.A. Ethnic Studies, University of California at Berkeley
2007 B.A. English; Puerto Rican & Hispanic Caribbean Studies; Women's & Gender Studies, Rutgers University
RESEARCH & TEACHING INTERESTS
Twenty & Twenty-first century Latinx Caribbean and Afro-Hispanic Literature; Latinx & Afro-Diasporic Studies; Visual & Cultural Studies; Comparative Ethnic Studies; Women of Color & Decolonial Feminisms; Diaspora/Exile Literature; Colonialism and Decolonization; Postcolonial and Decolonial Literature.
PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS
2023 - present Director, Center for Puerto Rican Studies [CENTRO], CUNY
2023-present Professor, CUNY, Hunter, Department of African American, Puerto Rican & Latino Studies
2020 - 2023 Associate Professor | Michigan State University | English
2014 - 2020 Assistant Professor | Michigan State University | English | African American & African Studies
2017-2018 Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow | Duke University | English
2013 - 2014 Full Time Instructor | Rutgers University | Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies
2011 - 2013 Learning Community Coordinator | Rutgers University | Institute for Research on Women
2008 - 2010 Instructor | University of California at Berkeley | Department of Ethnic Studies
BOOKS
Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature. Northwestern University Press, October 2020 [Awarded the 2021 MLA Prize in Chicana/o and Latina/o Literary and Cultural Studies]
Diásporas decolonizadoras: cartografías radicales de literaturas Afroatlánticas. Editora Educación Emergente, August 2023.
The Survival of a People. Under contract with Duke University Press.
PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES
“Reflections: On Strike MoMA, Caribe Fractal and Decolonial Feminisms as Political Arts Practice.” Co-authored with Stephany Bravo. Feminist Formations, Vol. 35, Issue 1, 2023 (30-46).
“Notes on Black Thought in Puerto Rico: A Brief Commentary.” Co-Authored with Pedro Lebrón Ortiz and Amanda Pavley. Díalogos, LIV, num. 112, 2023 (9-28).
“Diásporas Descolonizantes e Relações Afro- Atlânticas: O Caso para Estudos Caribenhos Afro-Latinx & da Guiné Equatorial.” Contemporânea: dossiê diáspora africana, 10, No. 3, 2021 (949-967).
"Introduction: Cuerpo, Conjuro y Memoria." Co-authored with Brenda E. Quiñones-Ayala. Hispanófila, vol. 189, 2020, p. 3-7.
“Your Lips: Mapping Afro-Latina Becomings.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 41, No. 1, May 2020.
“A Case for Relation: Decolonizing Diasporas Across Afro-Latinx Caribbean & Equatoguinean Poetics.” Small Axe, 61, March 2020.
“After the Hurricane: Decolonial Feminisms & Destierro.” Hypatia a Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 35 No.1, February 2020.
“The Life Work of Ana Celia Zentella: Anthropolitical Linguistics, Bilingualism, and Linguistic Communities at a Crossroads.” CENTRO Journal, 28 No. 1, 2016 (76-195).
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 2015 Diversity Essay Prize Winner: “Faithful Witnessing in Decolonial Readings of Shadows of Your Black Memory and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 30 No. 4, 2015 (641-656).
“Reparation as Transformation: Radical Literary (Re)imaginings of Futurities Through Decolonial Love.” Journal of Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 4 No. 1, 2015 (41-58).
PEER REVIEWED BOOK CHAPTERS
Forthcoming 2025: “Snapshots of Survival: Chicago in Frank Espada’s Puerto Rican Diaspora Project.” In the volume: Entre Horizontes: Art and Activism between Chicago and Puerto Rico. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2024.
Forthcoming 2025: “‘nosotros hemos quedado marca’o con ese huracán': Afro-Boricua Women Reflecting on Survival in the Wake of Hurricane María.” In the edited volume: Interrogating Puerto Rican Studies. Duke University press, 2024.
Forthcoming 2024: “‘A pesar de todo': The Survival of an Afro-Puerto Rican Family in Frank Espada’s The Puerto Rican Diaspora Project.” In the edited volume: Nuyorican/Diasporican Art. Duke University press, 2024.
Forthcoming 2024: “Afro-Caribbean and Latinx Archipelagic Connections: Boricuas in Hawai‘i” Co- authored with Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel in the Routledge Handbook for Caribbean Studies: Routledge, 2023.
“Grief to the Bone: Bodies that Remember.” In the edited volume: Infertilities, A Curation. Wayne State University Press, 2023.
“Hoodrat Praxis in a Time of Love & Fury.” Co-authored with Jessica Marie Johnson in the edited volume: More than Our Pain: Affect and Emotion in the Black Lives Matter Movement. SUNY Press, forthcoming 2021.
“Junot Díaz’s Diasporic Discontents: Love, Race, Belonging, and the Promise of Decolonial Love.” Book chapter in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latina and Latino Literature. Oxford University Press, April 2020.
“Not Your Papa’s Wynter: Women of Color Contributions Toward Decolonial Futures.” Co-authored book chapter in Beyond the Doctrine of Man: Decolonial Visions of the Human. Fordham University Press, 2019.
EDITED ISSUES/DOSSIERS
“Pensamiento Africano y Afrodiaspórico,” Numero especial para Díalogos, Revista del Departamento de Filosofía, Universidad de Puerto Rico co-edited with Pedro Lebrón Ortiz. Díalogos, num. 112, January 2023.
“Puerto Rican Women Conjuring Embodied Memory,” Special Dossier for Hispanófila co-edited with Brenda Quiñones-Ayala. Hispanófila, vol. 189, 2020, p. 3-7.
DIGITAL PEER REVIEWED ESSAYS
“Look a Whore! A Black Latina in the Field.” Black Latinas Know Collective. https:// www.blacklatinasknow.org/post/look-a-whore-a-black-latina-in-the-field. July 3, 2020.
“Afro-Boricua Archives: Paperless People and Photo/Poetics as Resistance.” Post 45. The Body of Contemporary Latinx Poetry. http://post45.org/2020/01/afro-boricua-archives-paperless-people-and-photo-poetics-as-resistance/. January 21, 2020.
“Ethnic Studies in the Face of the Liberal Hydra.” Ethnic Studies Rise Roundtable. https://ethnicrise.github.io/roundtable/liberal-hydra/. January 15, 2020.
BOOK REVIEWS
“Afro-Latinxs on the New York Scene: Daniel José Older’s Shadowshaper & Sofia Quintero’s Show and Prove.” SX Salon, 23, 2016 http://smallaxe.net/sxsalon/reviews/afro-latinxs-new-york-scene.
FELLOWSHIPS & GRANTS
2024-2029 Mellon Presidential Initiatives, “Rooted & Relation: A Vision for CENTRO” $6.48M
2022-2024 Mellon Crossing Latinidades: Latinx Past Fellow
2022-2024 Andrew W. Mellon Higher Learning Grant “Diaspora Solidarities Lab” $2M
2022-2023 Humanities & Arts Research Program (HARP) Production Grant
2022-2023 Clement A. Price Humanities Scholar-in-Residence, Rutgers University, Newark
2021-2022 Cornell University Society for the Humanities Fellowship
2018-2019 Humanities & Arts Research Program (HARP) Production Grant
2018-2019 Diversity Research Network Launch Awards Program Grant
2017-2018 Center for Latin American Studies Strategic Partnership Grant
2017-2018 Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship
2017-2018 Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement 12-Month Fellowship [declined]
2015-2016 Michigan State University Arts & Letters Faculty Summer Fellowship
2015-2016 LASA LSS Dissertation Award Honorable Mention
2015-2016 GSAH Global Perspectives Colloquia Grant
2015-2017 Duke University Mellon Mays SITPA Scholar
2013-2014 UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Department Travel Grant
2013-2014 Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship Honorable Mention
2012-2013 UC Berkeley Metro New York Leaders Fellowship
2010-2011 UC Berkeley Dean’s Normative Time Fellowship
2008-2009 Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Honorable Mention
2008-2012 UC Berkeley Graduate Division Summer Research Grant
2007-2009 UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fellowship
2006-2016 Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Scholar
ACADEMIC & COMMUNITY AWARDS
2021 MLA Prize in Chicana/o and Latina/o Literary and Cultural Studies
2020-2021 Emerging Scholar Award, Diverse Issues in Higher Education Magazine
2019-2020 Brown Pride & Cultura de Razas Unidas “Orgullo Latinx Award”
2018-2019 Michigan State University Inspirational Woman of the Year
2018-2019 Salute to Latinas Award, Delta Tau Lambda, Michigan State University
2018-2019 Dia de la Mujer Appreciation Award
2017-2018 Michigan State University Faculty Leadership Award
2015-2016 Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy Diversity Essay Prize Winner
MEDIA CONTRIBUTIONS
2020
The Guardian Op-Ed: “A White Scholar Pretended to be Black and Latina for Years. This is Modern Minstrelsy.” Co-authored with Yarimar Bonilla.
Essence Magazine: “A Word: Black Female Identity is Global.” September/October Issue, 2020.
Cite Black Women Podcast: “A Conversation with Carole Boyce Davies, Yomaira Figueroa, and Bedour Alagraa.”
The Surviving Society Podcast, Spotlight Series: “Black diasporas, anglo-centrism & positionally.”
2019
The Liberal Arts Endeavor, Podcast: “Diaspora & Decolonial Love”
2018
Left of Black: Season 9, Episode 8: “Decolonizing Diasporas: A Conversation with Yomaira Figueroa”
MSU English Grad Program Podcast: “MUSE Scholars Program”
2017
Dean’s Report 2017: “Inspiring First-Generation Studies Through Literature.”
2016
Guest Post: “On Faithful Witnessing.” African American Intellectual History Society.
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS/AFFILIATIONS
American Studies Association
Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora
Caribbean Philosophical Association
Critical Ethnic Studies Association
Latin American Studies Association
Modern Languages Association
National Women’s Studies Association
Puerto Rican Studies Association