Teaching Philosophy

My teaching is rooted in the same commitments that drive my research: social justice, accountability to communities, and the belief that rigorous scholarship and a more equitable world are not in tension but in conversation.

I practice what I call public sociology pedagogy. My courses ask students not only to read and analyze theory but to translate it, to take ideas developed in academic settings and put them in contact with real social conditions, real communities, and real stakes. In my International Migration and U.S.-Mexico Border seminars, students develop podcasts, policy briefs, infographics, and multimedia projects that make migration scholarship accessible beyond the classroom. Theory is not an endpoint in my courses. It is a tool for understanding the world and, when possible, changing it.

I am also committed to diverse and inclusive syllabi. Every course I teach centers women, scholars of color, and international and Global South perspectives, not as add-ons but as the intellectual core of the curriculum.

At the graduate level, my seminars are the educational infrastructure of La Querencia Lab. SOC 5158, Seminar in Ethnographic Visual Methods, serves as the lab's inaugural field practicum, training students as feminist ethnographers and methodologists whose work is accountable to border communities.

Courses at New Mexico State University (2022–Present)

Seminar in International Migration, Seminar in the Sociology of the U.S.-Mexico Border, Advanced Seminar in Qualitative Sociology, Seminar in Ethnographic Visual Methods, United States Race and Ethnic Relations, Social Change, Social Problems, Introduction to Sociology

Previous Teaching

University of Colorado Boulder (2018–2022)

United States Race and Ethnic Relations, Current Immigration Policies and their Sociological Implications, Research Methods, Race, Class, Gender and Crime, Social Problems

Tecnológico de Monterrey (2005–2009)

Sociology, International Perspective, Society Development and Citizenship in Mexico, Regional Studies, Comparative Regional Politics, Foundations of Ethics and Citizenship