I hold a Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in International Relations from El Colegio de México. As a historian of Latin American cities, I am broadly interested in the social, political, and cultural forces that shaped urbanization in the twentieth century. I am currently writing a book that interrogates Mexico City’s 20th century urban transformation and places it within a global flow of ideas about cities and urbanization. At Trinity, I teach classes on Latin American History, Mexican History, and Urban History, in Latin America and the world.
Education
- Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago
- B.A. in International Relations from El Colegio de México
Selected Publications
- The Politics of Informality: Housing and Planning in Mexico City. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2026.
- “Four Regimes of Informality: Legal Practices and Revolutionary Politics in 20th-Century Mexico City.” In Informal Cities: History, Power, and Precarity in Latin Europe, Latin America, and Colonial North Africa, edited by Brodwyn Fischer and Charlotte Vorms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2025 (co-authored with Antonio Azuela).
- “The ‘Latin American City’? The Rise and Fall of a Figment of the Social Imagination.” Latin American Research Review 60, no. 3 (2025): 733-743.
- “Mexico City as an Urban Laboratory: Oscar Lewis, the ‘Culture of Poverty,’ and the Transnational History of the Slum.” Journal of Urban History 45, no. 4 (2019): 813-30.
Subjects Taught
- City & Citizenship in Latin American History
- Latin American Cultural Tradition
- Modern Mexico
- American Migrant Cities
- Urban History Seminar
Teaching and Expertise
- Mexican History
- Latin American History
- Urban History
Honors & Awards
- Award for Distinguished Early Career Faculty Teaching & Research (Trinity University)
- Postdoctoral Fellowship, International Institute (UCSD)
- Predoctoral Fellow, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies (UCSD)
- Mellon Dissertation Fellowship
- Teixidor Fellowship (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)