I received my Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from Washington University in St. Louis, where I also completed a certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. My main areas of research are twentieth-century and contemporary Mexican literature and culture, focusing on how they intersect with gender, sexuality, border studies, and medical humanities. In my first book, tentatively titled Cuir Dissidence: Tracing Restorative Criticism and Breaking Bonds with the Mexican Canon (Forthcoming with Vanderbilt University Press), I trace the operations of canonicity across various forms of cultural production (performance, photography, fiction, etc.) to interrogate how women writers have skillfully manipulated gender and sexuality to reinvent the literary sphere from a cuir standpoint.

Currently, I am exploring the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry, the creation of archives, and cuir memory at the U.S.-Mexico border. Working through the lens of my family’s history in the pharmacological industry in the border city of Tijuana, I propose an analysis of the binational narratives surrounding the early years of the AIDS crisis, showing how these narratives reproduce damaging ideas of queer subjectivity tied to the permeability of borders and other national boundaries. By using new methodologies in the humanities and literary analysis, such as autotheory, I seek to trace a possible archive of AIDS in Tijuana with the aim of preserving the memory of those years.

I also often collaborated in non-academic venues such as Hablemos Escritoras and Tierra Adentro.

In terms of teaching, I offer courses on various topics, including Latinx cultural history and activism in Latin America. I am particularly interested in cultivating a learning experience that is communal, emotionally engaging, and creative, with the goal of gaining cultural skills that allow us to engage with different positionalities and identities. For me, the classroom is a social space where learning, collaboration, empathy, and practices of solidarity are intertwined as pedagogical tools to engage with the complexities of our local and global experiences.

On a personal level, I enjoy a variety of activities, such as rock climbing, swimming, and cooking. I also enjoy playing board games and am trying to become a gardener.