Research Assistant and lecturer in North American Studies at the University of Rostock. Doctoral thesis focuses on historical and contemporary Chicanx activism in the US Mexico Borderlands using the route of the 2012 Librotraficante Caravan as a framework for analysis. 

• Chicanx and Latinx Studies
• Border Studies - with a focus on the US Mexico Borderlands
• Migration in the Global South
• Protest Movements

2014- PhD ABD Cultural Studies, Saarland University
Thesis: “Running Hand in Hand: The Librotraficantes – Mapping Cultural Resistance in the US Mexico Borderlands.” Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Astrid M. Fellner

1998 MA American Literature and Culture, University of Leeds

1997 BA (Hons) 2.1 Comparative American Studies, University of Warwick 

““This Rather Bothersome Project”: Expanding the Parameters of Chicano/a Cultural Production.” The Space of U.S. Latino/a Culture Revisited: Essays in Memory of Juan Bruce-Novoa. Ed. Astrid M. Fellner and Horst Tonn. Berlin: Lit-Verlag, Forthcoming

“Not Afraid Anymore: The Librotraficantes and La Mujer Obrera” Tejanisimo: Readings in Tejan@ History, edited by Alberto Rodriguez. Laredo: Texas Tech University Press, 2018

"Resisting the National Discourse: Chicano Political Activism" Routledge Handbook of Chicana/o Studies, (co-authored Astrid M. Fellner) Ed. Denise Segura, Francisco Lomelí, Elyette Benjamin- Labarthe. New York: Routledge, 2018

 “I didn’t ask to be a Book Smuggler”: The Librotraficante Movement and the Battle for Ethnic Studies””. The Mexican American Studies Toolkit, Ed. Antonio Diaz. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2017

“The Librotraficantes and La Mujer Obrera (Re)laiming Space in El Paso.” The Journal of South Texas, Spring 2016

Aug-Oct. 2018
Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Widener University, Pennsylvania

Feb-Mar. 2016
Research Trip and Conference Activity Grants: GradUS Global - International PhD Research at Saarland University

Feb-Mar. 2015
Research Trip and Conference Activity Grants: GradUS Global - International PhD Research at Saarland University

Aug. 2014
Research Fellowship: University of Texas at Austin, Center for Mexican-American Studies (CMAS), Benson Latin American Collection.

Sept. 20, 2018
““For Better or Worse, We are Siamese Twins”: Re/claiming Histories of the US Mexico Borderlands”, College of Arts and Sciences, Widener University, Pennsylvania.

July 7, 2018
"Running Hand-in-Hand: The Librotraficantes - Mapping Cultural Resistance in the US Mexico Borderlands", Department of American Studies, University of Rostock.

Mar. 7, 2017
““Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin”: A Brief LGBTQ+ History of the UK.” Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Program, University of Houston, Texas

Mar. 2, 2017
“Gender Identity as Resistance in the US Mexico Borderlands”, Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Program, University of Houston, Texas

Jun. 29, 2016
“We Didn’t Cross the Border, Mr Trump, the Border Crossed Us: Mexican Americans – Dismantling the Myths of Migration”, Flucht und Migration in Lateinamerika Project, in assoc. with Amnesty International photographic exhibition: Unsichtbare Opfer. Migrantinnen und Migranten auf ihrem Weg durch Mexiko, Saarbrücken 

Mar. 15, 2016
“Bridging the Abyss: La Mujer Obrera - a Site of Cultural Resistance in the Transnational Borderlands”, Chicano Studies Program, the Women and Gender Studies Program, the Department of English, University of Texas, El Paso, Texas

Mar. 10, 2016
“Racialized, Gendered, and Other: Intersectional Survival in El Paso”, Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, University of Houston, Texas

Oct. 5, 2015
“¿Librotraficante y Qué? An Analysis of a Movement”, Department of Hispanic Studies, University of Houston, Texas

Sept. 22, 2015
“¿Librotraficante y Qué? An Analysis of a Movement”, Department of English, University of Texas, El Paso, Texas

Mar. 4, 2015
““V for Victory, Vatos”: The Librotraficantes in the Battle for the Borderlands”, Department of Hispanic Studies, University of Houston, Texas

Aug. 13, 2014
“Chican@ Studies and Researching the Librotraficante Movement from Germany”, Lone Star College-North Harris, Houston, Texas, 

July 2015
Moderator and member of organising team: “Border Cultures: Theorizing and (Con-) Textualizing Borders” Workshop, Saarland University

Panels Organized

Feb. 25, 2017
“The Past Will Come to Haunt”: From the Burning of Books to the Banning of History - Transnational Analysis of Lupe Mendez’s “A Librotraficante’s Thoughts (How a Book Smuggler Thinks)” (With readings by Mendez), NACCS Tejas Foco, Houston

Feb. 27, 2016
“American Voices: Latin@ Poets Panel” Closing Reception Spotlight, ALA Symposium, San Antonio, Texas

Feb. 26, 2016
“I Will Have My Serpent's Tongue: Chicana/Latina Feminisms Beyond Expectations”, ALA Symposium, San Antonio

Sept 11, 2015
“The I-10 Chican@ Renaissance from Califas to Tejaztlan: Identity, Social Change, and (Re)writing the City”, ALA Symposium, New Orleans

Papers Presented

Apr 4, 2018
“Barrio Pedagogy: The Battle for Mexican American Studies in Arizona” (roundtable) BAAS / EAAS London 2018

Feb. 25, 2017
“The Past Will Come to Haunt”: From the Burning of Books to the Banning of History - Transnational Analysis of Lupe Mendez’s “A Librotraficante’s Thoughts (How a Book Smuggler Thinks)”, NACCS Tejas Foco, Houston

Sept. 12, 2016
“Schooling Arizona: The Librotraficante Caravan - Coalescing History and Resistance in the US Mexico Borderlands”, Radical Americas Symposium, UCL Institute of the Americas, London

Mar. 18, 2016
““The Red Sea”: La Mujer Obrera (Re)Framing the Transnational in El Paso”, NAES 44th Annual Conference, Tucson

Feb. 26, 2016
“Taking Her Anzaldúa Underground: Carolina Hinojosa’s The List as Chicana Strategy, Survival, and Resistance in the Borderlands”, ALA Symposium, San Antonio

Feb. 20, 2016
““Familiar like Té de Yerbabuena”: Literature as Folk Healer”, NACCS Tejas Foco, Houston

Sept. 11, 2015
““We are All Our Own Gods”: Proclaiming Chicana in El Chuco”” ALA Symposium, New Orleans

Aug. 7, 2015
““The Red Sea”: La Mujer Obrera (Re)Framing the Transnational in El Paso”, PhD Workshop “Border Cultures: Theorizing and (Con-)Textualizing Borders” Saarland University

May 30, 2015
“"Armed with libros and veins": Carolina Hinojosa's The List as Chicana Voice in the Battle for the Borderlands”, AFEA Conference 2015, La Rochelle

Feb. 27, 2015
“Caravanning in Wales: Quantum Demographics as Transnational Pedagogy”, NACCS Tejas Foco, Houston, Texas

Nov. 23, 2014
“Cut ‘em off at the pass! Reclamation of Cultural Space in El Paso”, AAAS Conference 2014 (41st International Conference), Graz

May 31, 2014
“The Space Race: The Librotraficante Movement Revealing Pathways for Narratives of America”, MESEA, Ninth Biennial Conference, Saarbrücken

Feb. 20, 2014
“Bypassing the Border: The Librotraficante Movement Creating Space for America”,NACCS Tejas Foco, San Antonio, Texas

Mar. 21, 2016
Guest Host – NP Radio: Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, Houston Pacifica Radio 90.1 KPFT

Oct. 29, 2015
“International Panza: Claire M Massey” - The Panza Monologues Blog: panzamonologues.blogspot.de/2015/10/international-panza-claire-m-massey.html

Oct. 6, 2015
Guest Host – NP Radio: Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, Houston Pacifica Radio 90.1 KPFT 

Sept. 29, 2015
Guest Host – NP Radio: Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, Houston Pacifica Radio 90.1 KPFT 

Feb. 4, 2014
Guest: NP Radio: Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, Houston Pacifica Radio 90.1 KPFT

• ABS Association for Borderland Studies
• AHA American Historical Association
• MESEA Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas
• NACCS National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies