Faculty
RIDGS Cluster Hire Faculty
| Name | Contact | Expertise |
|---|---|---|
| Karen Mary Davalos Chicano & Latino Studies American Studies Art History |
Chicana/o art and culture; Latina/o spirituality; museum studies; midwestern Latino ethnography; oral history and the archive; feminist theory and editorial praxis; community-based learning and decolonial methods; arts organizations and artist collectives | |
| Gabriela Spears-Rico Assistant Professor American Indian Studies Chicano & Latino Studies American Studies Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
spearsrg@umn.edu | Cultural anthropology, performance studies, gendered violence, heritage tourism, mestizaje, decolonial feminism, ethnography, Chicanx indigeneity, Latinx spirituality |
Department Chairs
| Name | Contact | Expertise |
|---|---|---|
| Miranda Joseph American Studies |
eshuaman@umn.edu | Feminist, Marxist, poststructuralist, and queer theory; cultural studies methods; LGBT studies |
| David Aiona Chang American Indian Studies |
dchang@umn.edu | Indigenous Studies, Indigenous History, Native Hawaiian History, US West, Race and Nationalism, US Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century History, US Colonialism |
| Amelia María de la Luz Montes Chicano & Latino Studies |
monte466@umn.edu | Latina literature, LGBT literature, creative writing, and theories of identity. |
| Aren Aizura Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
azaizura@umn.edu | queer theory and queer studies; transgender studies; South East Asian studies; labor and political economy; science and medicine; transnationality and globalization |
| Karen Ho African American & African Studies |
karenho@umn.edu | Cultural studies of finance capital; finance, globalization, and capitalism; comparative race and ethnicity; feminist studies; political economy; ethnography; United States |
| Rich Lee Asian American Studies |
richlee@umn.edu | Counseling psychology; ethnic minority mental health; individual differences; international adoption; prevention science; Asian American studies |
| Erin L. Durban Jessica Horvath Williams Angela Carter Critical Disability Studies |
edurbana@umn.edu jchwil@umn.edu amcarter@umn.edu |
A thriving academic community around interdisciplinary, intersectional, and transnational approaches to studying disability |
Affiliated Faculty
| Name | Contact | Expertise |
|---|---|---|
| Aditi Rajendran Assistant Professor Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, College of Education and Human Development |
araj@umn.edu | racial justice leadership; equity policy and practice; community-school relations; participatory design and community-engaged research |
| Aisha Ghani Assistant Professor Anthropology |
aghani@umn.edu | Islam and the West; religion and politics, particularly Islam and politics; Post-Secularism and the Sacred; Radical and Secular Thought in the Middle East; Law and Society; Philosophy of Criminal Law; science and religion; psychoanalytic theory |
| Ann Waltner Professor History |
waltn001@umn.edu | ritual; law; religion; traditional Chinese social history; law; gender; analysis of historical documentation; rumor; gossip; chinese history; world history; feminism |
| Aren Aizura Associate Professor Chicano & Latino Studies |
azaizura@umn.edu | queer theory and queer studies; transgender studies; South East Asian studies; labor and political economy; science and medicine; transnationality and globalization |
| Atilla Hallsby Assistant Professor Communication Studies |
hall1039@umn.edu | Algorithmic Culture, Conspiracy Theories, Deconstruction, Dogwhistles, Genealogy, Gendered and Disabled Passing, Privacy, Leaking/Whistleblowing, Psychoanalysis, Rhetorical History, Rhetorical Theory, Secrets/Secrecy, Transparency. |
| Bianet Castellanos Associate Professor American Studies Chicano & Latino Studies American Indian Studies |
mbc@umn.edu | indigenous communities and cultures; migration; anthropology of work; Chicana/o studies; Latin America; transnationalism; gender studies |
| Bic Ngo Associate Professor Curriculum & Instruction, College of Education & Human Development |
bcngo@umn.edu | Exploration of understandings and influences of “culture” and “difference” on immigrant students' education, and the implications for how we theorize immigrant identity, culturally relevant pedagogy, and anti-oppressive education. |
| Blanca Caldas Chumbes Associate Professor Curriculum & Instruction, College of Education & Human Development |
bcaldasc@umn.edu | Bilingual education, preservice bilingual/language teacher education, minoritized language practices and pedagogies, critical pedagogy, Spanish for bilingual teachers, oral narratives/testimonio, critical discourse analysis, participatory action research, critical (performance) ethnography. |
| Brenda J Child Professor American Studies American Indian Studies |
child011@umn.edu | American Indian history; Public History and Museums; Ojibwe People of the Great Lakes; American Indian Women and Labor; The History of American Indian Education |
| Brendan Fairbanks Associate Professor American Indian Studies |
fair0061@umn.edu | linguistics; language revitalization; documentation; immersion |
| Cat Saint-Croix Assistant Professor, Philosophy |
csaintx@umn.edu | Feminist & queer social philosophy, social ontology, epistemic injustice, doxastic wronging, standpoint theory, feminist formal logic |
| Cawo Abdi Associate Professor Sociology |
cabdi@umn.edu | Migration; Gender, Race, and Class; Family; Islam; Education, Development Studies; Human Rights; Globalization; Africa; Middle East |
| Christina Ewig Professor Public Affairs Director of Center on Women, Gender and Public Policy |
cewig@umn.edu | Gender and public policy; race, ethnicity and gender in legislative and presidential politics; social welfare policy; politics in Latin America; international development and democracy |
| Christine DeLisle Associate Professor American Indian Studies |
cdelisle@umn.edu | Native and Indigenous Studies; Pacific Studies; Indigenous Women's History; Colonialism, Militarism, and the Environment; Indigenous Feminisms; Oceanic Resurgence and Social Movements; Micronesian Women's Activism; Museum Studies |
| Christopher Pexa Assistant Professor American Indian Studies |
cpexa@umn.edu | Native American and Indigenous Literatures, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Global Anglophone Indigenous Literatures, Futurity, Sovereignty Studies, Settler Colonial Studies, Dakota Language and Literature, Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Literature, US Federal Indian Law, Critical Indigenous Theory |
| Cindy Garcia Associate Professor Theatre Arts & Dance |
cgarcia@umn.edu | Anti-racist arts and activism, the cultural politics of migration, race and performance in the Americas, and decolonial feminist ethnography |
| David Chang Professor History American Indian Studies |
dchang@umn.edu | Indigenous Studies, Indigenous History, Native Hawaiian History, US West, Race and Nationalism, US Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century History, US Colonialism |
| David Karjanen Associate Professor American Studies |
karjanen@umn.edu | Comparative political economy, with a particular emphasis on low wage work, informal work, and urbanization. This includes day labor, "less documented" migration, and low-wage service work |
| David Valentine Associate Professor Anthropology |
valen076@umn.edu | Cultural and linguistic anthropology, social justice movements, gender and sexuality, queer theory, the idea of the future commercial space exploration |
| Doug Hartmann Professor Sociology |
hartm021@umn.edu | Race, Ethnicity and Immigration, Sociology of Culture, Sport Studies, Social Movements, American Society, Field Methods, Contemporary Theory, Public Engagement |
| dkearney@umn.edu |
Black Aesthetics/Poetics/Literature, Poetics/Prosody, Experimental Writing, Writing for Performance, Popular/Cultural Criticism, Hip Hop Studies
|
|
| Dwight K. Lewis, Jr. Assistant Professor Philosophy |
lewi1715@umn.edu | History of early modern philosophy, Philosophy of race, Africana philosophy, with a focus on the philosophy of Anton Willhelm Amo (c.1700-c.1750) |
| Eden Torres Associate Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
torre007@umn.edu | Race, class & gender, Chicana/o cultural studies, Chicana/Chicano history and politics, Chicana feminist theory, feminist & critical pedagogies, gender, labor & politics |
| Elaine Tyler May Regents Professor American Studies History |
mayxx002@umn.edu | 20th century United States history; the Cold War era; gender, sexuality, politics |
| Elizabeth Sumida Huaman Associate Professor Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy & Development, College of Education and Human Development |
eshuaman@umn.edu | Culturally-based community development, ecological knowledge and place-based education, Indigenous research design, human rights education |
| Elliott Powell Associate Professor American Studies |
ehpowell@umn.edu | American popular music and culture, critical race theory and comparative ethnic studies, feminist and queer studies, African American and Asian American studies, music and politics, music and globalization, jazz, hip hop, sound studies |
| Enid Logan Associate Professor Sociology |
elogan@umn.edu | Blackness & Indigeneity, Blackness in the Americas, contemporary U.S race relations, race and the body, race and electoral politics, Blacks and social class, Afro-Latin America |
| Erika Lee Regents Professor History American Studies Asian American Program Immigration History Research Center |
erikalee@umn.edu | Migration, race, and ethnicity; Asian Americans; 20th-century United States; law and public policy |
|
Erin Durban
Assistant Professor Anthropology
Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies American Studies |
edurbana@umn.edu | Feminist studies, transnational feminisms, queer and trans studies, disability studies, transnational American studies, Haiti and Haitian Studies |
| Gabriela Spears-Rico Assistant Professor American Indian Studies Chicano & Latino Studies American Studies Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
spearsrg@umn.edu | Cultural anthropology, performance studies, gendered violence, heritage tourism, mestizaje, decolonial feminism, ethnography, Chicanx indigeniety, Latinx spirituality |
| Gabrielle Ferrales Assistant Professor Sociology |
ferrales@umn.edu | Law and society, gender, criminology and criminal justice, international criminal law, quantitative and qualitative methods, factorial survey methods for empirical analysis |
| Greg Donofrio Associate Professor School of Architecture, College of Design |
donofrio@umn.edu | History and Theory of Historic Preservation, Historic Preservation Policy, United States, 20th Century US Urban Planning History, Financial Incentives for Historic Preservation, Community Engaged Historic Preservation |
| Jean O'Brien Professor History |
obrie002@umn.edu | Native American and Indigenous studies, settler colonialism, state and federal recognition, US colonial history |
|
Jennifer L. Pierce
Professor American Studies
|
pierc012@umn.edu | Workplace and labor studies, gender, feminist theory, race relations, affirmative action, ethnography, social theory, sociology of emotions, research using personal narratives |
| Jennifer Row Assistant Professor French & Italian |
jjrow@umn.edu | Queer theory, disability studies, Early Modern dramatic literature (French and English), dance history and performance studies, affect theory, histories and archives of sexuality and gender, literary theory and history of rhetoric |
|
Jessica Lopez-Lyman
Assistant Professor Chicano & Latino Studies
|
lyma0025@umn.edu | Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x performance, art, and organizing in the Midwest |
| Jimmy Patiño Chicano & Latino Studies |
jpatinoj@umn.edu | Race/Class/Gender, Chicano/a and Latino/a History, Culture and Politics, Immigration and the US-Mexico Border, Latino/a Civil Rights and the Chicano/a Movement, African American and Latino/a Relations |
| Joe Soss Professor Social Policy Area, Humphrey School of Public Affairs |
jbsoss@umn.edu | Race and ethnicity; social welfare policy; gender; civic engagement and public participation; democracy; income inequality and poverty |
| John Wright Emeritus Professor African American & African Studies English |
wrigh003@umn.edu | American and Afro-American literature, intellectual history and popular culture, folklore and oral tradition, sociology of literature, feminist criticism, Harlem Renaissance, Black Arts Movement, Langston Hughes |
| Josef Woldense Assistant Professor African American & African Studies Political Science |
jwoldens@umn.edu | Elite politics, authoritarian regimes, political institutions and social network analysis with a geographical focus on Africa |
| Josephine Lee Professor English Asian American Studies American Studies |
jolee@umn.edu | Dramatic literature, theater history, performance studies, Asian American studies |
| Kale Fajardo Associate Professor American Studies |
kfajardo@umn.edu | Gender and sexuality studies, queer theory, queer of color critique, masculinity studies, transgender studies, Philippine Studies, Filipinix Studies, Asian American Studies, American Studies, Global Studies, globalization studies, migration studies, conceptual ethnographic practice, (UC) Santa Cruz School of Ethnography, visual cultures, photography, environmental humanities, human-fish relations. |
| Karen Ho Associate Professor Anthropology |
karenho@umn.edu | Cultural studies of finance capital; finance, globalization, and capitalism; comparative race and ethnicity; feminist studies; political economy; ethnography; United States |
| Karen Mary Davalos Professor Chicano & Latino Studies |
Chicana/o art and culture; Latina/o spirituality; museum studies; midwestern Latino ethnography; oral history and the archive; feminist theory and editorial praxis; community-based learning and decolonial methods; arts organizations and artist collectives | |
| Karen-Sue Taussig Associate Professor Anthropology |
taussig@umn.edu | Medical anthropology; social and cultural implications of genetic testing, new reproductive technologies, cloning, and stem cell research; genetics; eugenics; anthropology of science; biotechnology |
| Kari Smalkoski Assistant Professor Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies |
smal0009@umn.edu | Masculinity, gender and identity, education and political economy, LGBTQ youth as well as youth sports and social capital. Asian American youths' experiences in and out of schools |
| Katherine Gerbner Associate Professor History |
kgerbner@umn.edu | Atlantic World, Early American History, Religion, Comparative Early Modern History, History of Race, Global Christianity |
| Kat Hayes Associate Professor Anthropology American Indian Studies |
kathayes@umn.edu | Historical archaeology; memory, forgetting, history, heritage; settler colonialism and Indigenous studies; XR (extended reality) in heritage interpretation; archaeological ethics and repatriation |
| Katie Johnston-Goodstar Associate Professor Social Work, College of Education & Human Development |
john1906@umn.edu | Social and political contexts of urban and Indigenous youth development; Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR); youth and media; critical and indigenous pedagogies; history of youth work and social work in urban and Indigenous communities |
| Katy Kozhimannil Associate Professor Health Policy Management, School of Public Health |
kbk@umn.edu | Health care policy, maternal and child health, rural health, health care quality, policy evaluation, health equity |
| Keith Mayes Associate Professor African American & African Studies |
mayes@umn.edu | African-American History, 19th and 20th century; Kwanzaa and Black holidays; Civil Rights and Black Power Movement; Black History and Educational Policy; African American Public History |
| Keletso E. Atkins Emerita Associate Professor African American & African Studies |
atkin013@umn.edu | Africa, African diaspora, African labor history, South African history |
| Kevin Murphy Professor History American Studies |
kpmurphy@umn.edu | History of sexuality, public history, comparative history of women and gender, United States history, cultural and intellectual history, urban history |
| Lena Palacios Assistant Professor Communication Studies |
lena@umn.edu | Critical carceral studies and abolitionist feminisms; transformative justice and community accountability; racialized, gendered, and sexualized violence within carceral, settler states; Black, Indigenous, Chicana & Latina queer and trans feminisms; firls’ and girlhood studies; research justice and critical participatory action research; media justice and social movement media; critical disability studies; health justice and structural determinants of health |
| Mai Na Lee Associate Professor History |
mainalee@umn.edu | Southeast Asia; Highland Southeast Asian Studies; Southeast Asian American/Hmong communities |
| Margaret Werry Associate Professor Theatre Arts & Dance |
werry001@umn.edu | Anthropological approaches to performance as social dramaturgy; critical race theory; cultural politics and performance of ethnicity, nationalism, and transnationalism, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region; 19th century Euro-American and British colonial popular theatre and entertainment culture; performance theory and historiographic method; cultural policy and governmentality - tourism, heritage, film; critical pedagogy; museum studies |
| Martin F. Manalansan IV Associate Professor American Studies |
manal016@umn.edu | Sexuality and gender; race and ethnicity; immigration and globalization; cities and modernity; affect; senses and embodiment; food and culture; science and technology studies; critical theory; Filipino global diaspora; Asian Americans; Southeast Asia; Philippines |
| Mary Hermes Associate Professor Curriculum & Instruction, College of Education & Human Development |
mhermes@umn.edu | Community engagement; cultural studies; curriculum development; diversity and equity; Indigenous language revitalization; social justice |
| Melanie Abeygunawardana Assistant Professor American Studies |
abey@umn.edu | Asian American studies; African American studies; 20th and 21st century American literature and culture; Comparative and relational approaches to race; Critical race theory; Theories of affect, feeling, and emotion; Queer theory |
| Michael Goldman Associate Professor Sociology |
mgoldman@umn.edu | Transnational, Political Economic and Urban Sociology; Expert Networks of Finance, Development, Knowledge, and Power |
| Miranda Joseph Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
josephm@umn.edu | Feminist, Marxist, poststructuralist, and queer theory; cultural studies methods; LGBT studies |
| Nathaniel Mills Associate Professor English |
mills175@umn.edu | 20th-century US and African American Literature; African American Studies; Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright; Literature and Culture of the Great Depression; The Literary Left and Communism in the US |
|
Nina Asher
Professor Curriculum & Instruction, College of Education & Human Development
|
nasher@umn.edu | Postcolonial and feminist theory; globalization; critical perspectives on multiculturalism; and Asian American studies in relation to education |
| Njeri Githire Associate Professor African American & African Studies |
ngithire@umn.edu | African Literarature; African Cinema; African Popular Cultures; African Diaspora Studies; Postcolonial Theory & Criticism; Gender Studies & Feminist Theory; Francophone Studies; Immigration, Migration & Transnational Networks in Africa/the Diaspora; Food, (Non)-Eating, and Related Topics in African Literature |
| Penny Edgell Professor Sociology |
edgell@umn.edu | Culture; Sociology of Religion & Nonreligion, Focus on the United States; Symbolic Boundaries & Inequality; Gender & Family |
| Rachel Hardeman Assistant Professor Health Policy Management, School of Public Health |
hard0222@umn.edu | Maternal and child health; sexual and reproductive health; health equity; structural racism; population health; medical education |
| Rachel Schurman Professor Sociology |
schurman@umn.edu | Agri-food Studies; Transnational Sociolgy; Social Movements; Global Political Economy; Political Sociology; Development/Post-Development Studies |
| Rachmi Diyah Larasati Associate Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
laras001@umn.edu | Study of Archive, Memory of Violence; Creative Projects in Post-Conflict/War Zones (Asia); Performing Arts in Global Politics & Culture; Dancing Body, Tourism & Female Citizenship; Genocide/Massacre Cultural Reconstruction; Politics of Human Rights and Creative Arts; Dancing Body in Southeast Asian Islam; Aesthetics of Traditional/Indigenous Space and Embodiment |
| Rich Lee Professor Psychology |
richlee@umn.edu | Counseling psychology; prevention science; ethnic minority mental health; international adoption; individual differences; Asian American studies |
| Richa Nagar Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
nagar@umn.edu | Politics of development; feminisms, praxis, and people's movements; Intersectionality, translations, and people's theater; blending/ interrupting genres and languages in antidisciplinary research |
| Robert Nichols Associate Professor Political Science |
rbnichol@umn.edu | Modern and Contemporary Political Theory; Critical Theory; Empire, Imperialism, and Colonialism in the History of Political Thought; Indigeneity and Settler Colonialism |
|
Roozbeh Shirazi
Associate Professor Comparative and International Development Education Program
Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development
|
shir0035@umn.edu | Comparative education; migration and racialization; Middle Eastern studies; postcolonial and decolonial studies in education; critical educational policy studies; diaspora studies and transnationalism; globalization; youth political subjectivities; politics of belonging; ethnography; participatory visual methodologies |
|
Rose Brewer
Professor African-American & African Studies
|
brewe001@umn.edu | African American women's studies; Black family life; class; gender; intersection of economy; race; racism; sociology; women's studies; critical theory; social transformation |
| Ryan Allen Assistant Professor Urban & Regional Planning, Humphrey School of Public Affairs |
allen650@umn.edu | Race and ethnicity; urban and regional planning; civic engagement and public participation; demography; housing policy and planning; immigration and refugee services and policy |
| Sima Shakhsari Associate Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
Transnational Feminist Theory and Practice; Transnational Queer Theory and Sexuality Studies; Middle Eastern Studies; Social Media; Diasporas; Refugee Studies; Political Anthropology; Cultural and Social Anthropology; Studies of Governmentality; Neoliberalism; Civil Society | |
| Stefanie Marshall Assistant Professor Curriculum & Instruction, College of Education & Human Development |
slmarsh@umn.edu | Science Education; Educational Policy; Leadership in science education |
| Susan Craddock Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
craddock@umn.edu | AIDS; disease; health; social justice |
| Susanna Blumenthal Professor Law School |
blume047@umn.edu | Historical relationship between law and the human sciences |
| Tade Okediji African American & African Studies; Applied Economics |
tokediji@umn.edu | Social and behavioral sciences; public policy and development; Africa and African diasporic studies |
| Tania Mitchell Associate Professor Organizational Leadership, Policy & Development, College of Education & Human Development |
tmitchel@umn.edu | Community engagement and service-learning; Civic identity; Social justice; Critical pedagogy; Ethical leadership Diversity and difference in higher education college student development |
| Teresa Swartz Asian American Studies Sociology |
tswartz@umn.edu | Families; Intergenerational Relations; Social Inequality; Asian American Studies; Gender; Welfare State; Youth and Young Adulthood |
| Timothy Lensmire Professor Curriculum & Instruction, College of Education & Human Development |
lensmire@umn.edu | Possibilities and problems of various critical pedagogies for how they can promote and embody radical democracy; how white people learn to be white in our white supremacist society |
| Tracey Deutsch Associate Professor History |
tdeutsch@umn.edu | Consumption and consumerism; women's and gender history; history of capitalism; food studies |
| Vicente M. Diaz Associate Professor American Indian Studies |
vmdiaz@umn.edu | Indigenous Critical Theory; Traditional Outrigger Canoe Voyaging in Micronesia; Coloniality and Indigenous Christianity in Micronesia; Indigenous Masculinity and Sports in the Pacific; Trans-Indigenous Theory and Practice |
| Vichet Chhuon Associate Professor Curriculum & Instruction, College of Education & Human Development |
vichet@umn.edu | Motivation; Urban Education; Racial and Ethnic Identities; Adolescent Development; School Connectedness; Immigrant Youth; Asian American Studies |
| Victoria Coifman Assistant Professor African American & African Studies |
coifm001@umn.edu | African history; comparative tropical history; development issues; oral history; past and present urban and rural affairs; West and North African history; Islam |
| William P. Jones Professor History |
wpjones@umn.edu | African Americans; 20th-century United States; Unions/Organized Labor; Civil Rights Movement |
|
Associate Professor
African American & African Studies
|
ohni001@umn.edu | African American history, Asian American studies, African diaspora studies |
| Zenzele Isoke Associate Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
isoke001@umn.edu | Black Femme/Queer of Color Feminism; Black Feminist Thought; Urban Ethnography; Feminist Theory and Methods; Black/African Diaspora Studies; Black Cultural Theory; Black Geographies |