Faculty

Kathleen Coll is a cultural anthropologist whose research and teaching focuses on immigration politics and policies, cultural citizenship, and grassroots community organizing in the U.S., with special emphasis on the San Francisco Bay Area. Her books include Remaking Citizenship: Latina Immigrants and New American Politics (Stanford University Press, 2010) an ethnography of Mujeres Unidas y Activas and immigrant women’s activism in San Francisco, a co-authored book Disputing Citizenship (Policy...

Dr. Violet Cheung (ORCiD 0000-0003-2706-025X) is a co-chair and a professor in the department of psychology at the University of San Francisco. Her research on mass emotions started after 9/11 while she was completing her doctorate degree at UC Berkeley. She examined angry responses to the terrorist attack and how the public sentiment precipitated the U.S. to go to war. She now focuses on anxious and fearful responses in the new contexts of cyber insecurity, the migrant crisis, and the COVID...

Kevin M. Chun, PhD, is professor of psychology and co-founding faculty member of USF’s Asian American Studies and Critical Diversity Studies programs. Professor Chun uses community-based research methods to study acculturation effects on Asian American immigrant health and psychosocial adjustment. His research program aims to improve acculturation theory and measures, and develop health interventions that reduce immigrant families’ acculturation stress.

Prof. Chun was co-principal...

Sergio De La Torre's project work has focused on issues regarding immigration, tourism, surveillance technologies, and transnational identities. These works have been exhibited in a variety of venues both national and international. He has received grants from the NEA, The Rockefeller Foundation, Creative Capital, the Potrero Nuevo Fund, and the Creative Work Fund, among others.

De La Torre's latest project is MAQUILAPOLIS (City of Factories), an hour-long video documentary made in...

Marco Durazo is a political scientist whose research and teaching focuses on race, immigration, the military, war, and U.S. Foreign Policy. He is currently working on a book manuscript that examines the experiences of deported U.S. service members. His courses include: Latino Politics, Chicanx/Latinx Cultural & Society, Security & Terrorism, and the department’s non-profit Internship course.

Dr. Dellanira Garcia, a licensed clinical psychologist, obtained her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington. She was awarded a National Research Service Award (F31) from the National Institutes of Mental Health to examine social capital and mental illness among women of Mexican descent. Dr. Garcia's research focuses on socio-cultural contextual factors impacting ethnic minority mental health and sexual risk behaviors, with an emphasis in Latino populations. Her community...

Dr. Melisa Garcia is a poet and interdisciplinary scholar. Her research interests include: linguistic justice, the use of alternative discourses, and decolonial spaces that create the inclusion of BIPOC community discourses. She also researches the damaging rhetoric that shapes the Central American diaspora in the U.S. through the use of autoethnography, constellation identities, and decolonial imaginaries. Through her research, teaching, and community work, Dr. Garcia aims to bring stories...

Christina Garcia Lopez holds a PhD in American Studies with a portfolio in Mexican American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. She completed her BA in English Literature at the University of North Texas and an MA in American Literature and Culture at the University of Leeds. Previous to joining USF, she held a lectureship at the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her teaching and research interests include: Latinx and Chicanx literature; Ethnic...

*On leave until Fall 2025*

Ilaria Giglioli is a scholar of migration, borders and racialization. A human geographer by training, she studies the creation, legitimization and contestation of borders, with a comparative focus in the Mediterranean and US southern border. In particular, she studies the social, political and economic processes that generate support for border fortification, as well as social movements that contest it. She also studies the relationship between border fortification...

Roberto Gutiérrez Varea began his career in theater in his native Argentina. His research and creative work focuses on live performance as means of resistance and peacebuilding in the context of social conflict and state violence. Varea's stage work in the United States includes directing premieres of works by Migdalia Cruz, Ariel Dorfman, Cherríe Moraga, and José Rivera, among others. He is the founding artistic director of Soapstone Theatre Company, a collective of male ex-offenders and women...

Belinda Hernandez Arriaga is a Faculty Coordinator for the Masters In Counseling MFT program at USF's South Bay location. Belinda has a doctorate in Education, and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with eighteen years experience working in community mental health, with a specialization in child trauma and Latino Mental Health. Belinda has extensive experience in county mental health where she worked in Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall mental health and San Mateo County Pre to Three High Risk...

Throughout his career, Professor Bill Ong Hing pursued social justice through a combination of community work, litigation, and scholarship. He is the author of numerous academic and practice-oriented publications on immigration policy and race relations, including Humanizing Immigration: How to Transform Our Racist and Unjust System (Beacon Press 2023), American Presidents, Deportation and Human Rights Violations (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019); Ethical Borders—NAFTA, Globalization, and Mexican...

Associate Professor, received her Masters in Comparative Literature at San Francisco State University and her PhD from the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at Stanford University. Her areas of focus include Mexican, Border and Chicana/o Literary and Cultural Studies, with an interest in Feminist and Performance Studies.

Marco Jacquemet teaches courses in communication and culture, intercultural communication, geographies of communication, and justice and social change. His scholarship focuses on the communicative mutations produced by the circulation of migrants and media idioms in the Mediterranean area. His more recent book project is called Transidioma: Language and Power in the 21st Century. He is also present in Italian media activist networks, where he investigates the link between media and power.

Professor Pedro Lange Churión is both an academic and a visual artist. He has written and directed various films, including Crocodile (USA, 2000). Based on a short story by Felisberto Hernández. This film received a Remmy Bronze award for best dramatic adaptation at the Houston International Film Festival (2001). He also wrote and directed Visitas (Colombia, 2005), a full-feature narrative film that explores violence in Colombia. This film has garnered recognition as "Official Selection" in...

Lois Ann Lorentzen is Professor of Social Ethics in the Theology and Religious Studies Department at the University of San Francisco (USF) and Academic Director, Master in Migration Studies Professor Lorentzen received her PhD in Social Ethics at the University of Southern California. Prior to coming to USF she taught at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

Professor Lorentzen is the author of Etica Ambiental (Environmental Ethics) and Raising the Bar, editor of Hidden Lives and Human...

Julio Moreno is a professor of history and affiliated engineering faculty at the University of San Francisco. Born in the Salvadoran countryside, Professor Moreno fled his country's civil war at the age of fourteen and navigated the US educational system as an undocumented immigrant. He is the recipient of distinguished awards that include research fellowships on the globalization of U.S. business, technology, and diplomacy at the Library of Congress and the Institute for Historical Studies at...

Jeffrey Paller specializes in African politics and sustainable urban development. His current research examines 1) the contentious politics of African urbanization, 2) the building of sustainable neighborhoods in African cities, and 3) political change and local governance in emerging cities. His first book Democracy in Ghana: Everyday Politics in Urban Africa (Cambridge University Press) was published in 2019. He also curates the weekly news bulletin “This Week in Africa.”

Evelyn I. Rodriguez is a second-generation Pinay, who was born in Honolulu, raised in San Diego, and is now an Associate Professor for the University of San Francisco's Department of Sociology. She also is a faculty member in Critical Diversity Studies, Asian American Studies, and the Maria Elena Yuchengco Philippine Studies Program. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from UC San Diego as a Sociology major/Ethnic Studies minor; and received her MA and PhD from UC Berkeley's...

Hwaji Shin joined the Sociology Department at the University of San Francisco as a full-time Assistant Professor in 2007. She completed her PhD in Sociology at SUNY Stony Brook, where she received the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching. Between 2008 and 2010, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor and Japan Fund fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies at Stanford University where she researched and lectured on race and ethnic relations in modern Japan.

Her...

Amy Argenal completed her doctorate in International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco, where she also received her Master’s in the same area of study. She received her second Masters in Human Rights from Mahidol University in Thailand, where she continued to partner with human rights activists in South East Asia, through her doctorate research focusing on human rights activism in Myanmar. Amy served as the Director of Service Learning at Urban High School in San...

Luis Enrique “Kique” Bazan is a longtime advocate for justice with years of experience working with human rights and advocacy organizations. Originally from Lima, Peru, Kique earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the Pontifical Catholic University in Lima, a master’s in theology and religious studies, and a doctorate in organization and leadership from USF. He spends most of his time being a staff member for the Office of International Initiatives and University Ministry connecting with...

Dr. Didem Ekici has 20 years of teaching experience in the United States and overseas. She is an alumna of the International and Multicultural Education program at the University of San Francisco where she earned her doctoral degree in 2018. She has been teaching graduate classes in Migration Studies and General Education programs at USF. Besides her adjunct faculty role at Golden Gate University, she is also a faculty member and department co-chair in the ESOL and World Languages Department at...

Rubén Martínez, a native of Los Angeles and the son and grandson of immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador, is a writer, teacher and performer. He holds the Fletcher Jones Chair in Literature and Writing at Loyola Marymount University and is the author of several books, including Desert America: A Journey Across Our Most Divided Landscape and Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail. He is the host of the VARIEDADES performance series. His most recent production, "Little Central...

Susana Kaiser teaches at the Media Studies Department. She earned her PhD from the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, her MA from the Department of Communication at Hunter College of the City University of New York, and her BA in Advertising from the Jesuit University of El Salvador, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, her country of origin. Before coming to USF she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on...