Ping-Ann Addo ‘96
Associate Professor of Anthropology
University of Massachusetts-Boston
Ping-Ann Addo (Ph.D., Yale University, 2004) is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she teaches courses on art & expressive culture, critical multiculturalism, race & ethnicity, and anthropological approaches to visual art, the African Diaspora, and Indigenous film. Her book, Creating a Nation with Cloth: Tradition, Textiles, and Tongan Women (Berghahn Books, 2013) employs traditional textile art to analyze immigrant Tongan women re-creating their native communities in urban New Zealand. Addo’s current project explores the politics and aesthetics of diasporic West Indian identity, as illuminated Boston’s Caribbean Carnival practices. Through this festival, which has taken place in Boston for almost a half-century, community sustenance is assured by the continued articulation of small entrepreneurship with transnational capital of all forms. Addo investigates how costume production, gendered public masquerading, and other “business” of Carnival undergird immigrant place-keeping practices in the face of contemporary urban development and gentrification. She supports any projects on resistance, resilience, and art-based self-empowerment by immigrant communities.
Randall Akee ‘94
Associate Professor of Public Policy
University of California-Los Angeles
Randall Akee is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Public Policy and American Indian Studies. He is currently on leave as a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. He completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in June 2006. Prior to his doctoral studies, Dr. Akee earned a Master’s degree in International and Development Economics at Yale University. He also spent several years working for the State of Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs Economic Development Division.
Dr. Akee is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Labor Studies and the Children’s Groups. He is also a research fellow at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), a faculty affiliate at the UCLA California Center for Population Research (CCPR) at UCLA and a faculty affiliate at UC Berkelely Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA). His main research interests are Labor Economics, Economic Development and Migration.
Previous research has focused on the determinants of migration and human trafficking, the effect of changes in household income on educational attainment, the effect of political institutions on economic development and the role of property institutions on investment decisions. Current research focuses on income inequality and immobility by race and ethnicity in the US. Dr. Akee has worked on several American Indian reservations, Canadian First Nations, and Pacific Island nations in addition to working in various Native Hawaiian communities.
From August 2006 until August 2009 he was a Research Associate at IZA, where he also served as Deputy Program Director for Employment and Development. Prior to UCLA (2009-2012), he was an Assistant Professor at Tufts University and spent AY 2011-2012 at the Center for Labor Economics at University of California, Berkeley.
In June 2013 he was named to the U.S. Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations.
Obianuju Anya ‘98
Assistant Professor of Education
Penn State University
Dr. Uju Anya is assistant professor of second language learning in the Curriculum and Instruction Department and research affiliate with the Center for the Study of Higher Education at The Pennsylvania State University. She specializes in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and second language learning with particular focus on race, gender, sexual, and social class identities in the language classroom. She has expertise in diversity, equity, and inclusion in educational policy and curriculum design, applied linguistics as a practice of social justice, intercultural communication, as well as service-learning and civic engagement in secondary and university-level language programs.
Dr. Anya’s most recent research project is published in her book Racialized identities in second language learning: Speaking blackness in Brazil (Routledge 2017), winner of the 2019 American Association for Applied Linguistics First Book Award recognizing a scholar whose first book represents outstanding work that makes an exceptional contribution to the field. The book is the first single-authored volume of sociolinguistic analysis and critical examination of the African American experience in language learning. It examines how students shape and negotiate different identities in multilingual contexts, and it proposes how a multilingual approach (e.g. translanguaging, plurilingual practice) can be utilized for effective language pedagogy.
Previously, Dr. Anya was assistant professor of clinical education at the University of Southern California; visiting assistant professor and faculty director of the Dartmouth College Portuguese language study abroad program in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil; and lecturer in applied linguistics, TESOL, Portuguese, and Spanish at UCLA and Dartmouth College. She holds a PhD in applied linguistics from UCLA, an MA in Brazilian studies from Brown University, and a BA in Romance languages from Dartmouth College.
Judith Byfield ‘80
Professor of History
Cornell University
Judith A. Byfield, originally from Jamaica, is a Professor in the Department of History at Cornell University. A member of the field in Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Africana Studies, Byfield focuses primarily on African and Caribbean history. She received her B.A. from Dartmouth College and her Ph.D. from Columbia University.
She is the author of The Great Upheaval: Women and Nation in Post-War Nigeria (Ohio University Press, forthcoming) and The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Indigo Dyers in Western Nigeria, 1890-1940 (Heinemann, 2002). She has co-edited several books: Global Africa (University of California Press, 2017) with Dorothy Hodgson; Africa and World War II, with Carolyn Brown, Timothy Parsons, Ahmad Sikainga, (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Gendering the African Diaspora: Women, Culture, and Historical Change in the Caribbean and Nigerian Hinterland with LaRay Denzer and Anthea Morrison (Indiana University Press, 2010). She has published articles in edited volumes and journals such as Canadian Journal of African Studies; Journal of African History; Meridians: A Journal on Feminism, Race, and Transnationalism, and Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender and the Black International.
Fellowships from Columbia, Dartmouth and Cornell universities supported her extensive research trips to Nigeria and the UK. In addition to institutional support, Byfield has received several national fellowships: Fulbright Global Scholar (2018-2019); Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2013-14); National Humanities Center - Hurford Fellowship (2007-08); National Humanities Endowment Fellowship (2003-04); and the Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship (2002-03).
Beyond publications, Byfield contributes to the field through service on editorial and advisory committees. She served on editorial boards for Cambridge University Press – New Perspective in African History and Indiana University Press - Blacks in the Diaspora Series. In addition, she has been a member of advisory boards for: Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender and the Black International; Journal of African History; Contours – A Journal of the African Diaspora; and Women Writing Africa.
Byfield has served in numerous organizational capacities as well. She was Co-chair of the Program Committee for the Seventeenth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders, and Sexualities (June 1-4, 2017); former President of the African Studies Association (2011); as well as Chair of the Association of African Studies Programs (2002-2005).
Jeffrey Coleman ‘08
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Marquette University
Jeffrey K. Coleman is an Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures at Marquette University. He is a Dartmouth College MMUF and obtained his Ph.D. in Romance Languages & Literatures from the University of Chicago in 2014. During his 5 years at Marquette, he has published several articles on immigration, race, and national identity in the Spanish context in the Journal of Catalan Studies, Symposium, Estreno and others. In addition, in 2015 he was awarded the Duke University SITPA (Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement) Fellowship and in 2017 was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship.
His first book, entitled The Necropolitical Theater: Race and Immigration on the Contemporary Spanish Stage (forthcoming with Northwestern University Press in May 2020), explores how the intersections of race and immigration manifest in Spanish theatre from 1991-present. He is also working on his next book project tentatively titled, España Negra: The Consumption & Rejection of Blackness in Contemporary Spain, which explores the ways in which Spanish media, popular culture, and literature have portrayed Blackness from the late 19th century to the present.
Óscar Rubén Cornejo Casares ‘17
Ph.D. Student of Sociology
Northwestern University
Óscar R. Cornejo Cásares is a third year Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University. His research interests lie at the intersection of undocumented migration, the sociology of race/ethnicity, the sociology of law, and social movements. At Dartmouth, he co-founded and co-directed the Coalition for Immigration Reform and Equality at Dartmouth (CoFIRED), the school’s first immigrant rights student organization. He also served as Co-President of La Alianza Latina, interned for the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, worked for the Office of Judicial Affairs, and joined the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF).
At Dartmouth, Oscar double majored in Sociology and Native American Studies modified with Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies. His sociology undergraduate honors thesis “Freedom University & The Tyranny of Home: The Politics of Belonging in the Era of Modern Segregation” was based on fieldwork in Atlanta and interviews of undocumented young adult immigrants part of Freedom University, an underground freedom school for undocumented youth banned from higher education in Georgia. Through the help of MMUF and the Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers, Oscar matriculated to Northwestern after graduating from Dartmouth, continuing his work with undocumented immigrants. His master’s thesis “Hidden But Exposed: Intersections of Race/Ethnicity & Legal Status” analyzes the constitutive relationship of race and migrant illegality through 20 in-depth life history interviews of undocumented young adults in the Chicagoland area from around all the world. Recently, Oscar was featured in the documentary, Change the Subject, which tells the story of a Dartmouth-led effort to change the Library of Congress subject heading of “illegal immigrant.”
Lillian Guerra ‘92
Professor of History
University of Florida
Professor Lillian Guerra is the author of many scholarly articles and essays as well as four published books of history: Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico (University Press of Florida, 1998), The Myth of José Martí: Conflicting Nationalisms in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba (University of North Carolina Press, 2005), and Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption and Resistance, 1959-1971 (University of North Carolina Press, 2012). Visions of Power in Cuba received the 2014 Bryce Wood Book Award from the Latin American Studies Association, its most prestigious prize for a book on Latin America across all fields. Dr. Guerra’s fourth book, published by Yale University Press in 2018, is titled Heroes, Martyrs and Political Messiahs in Revolutionary Cuba, 1946-1958. She is currently completing a fifth book of history, Patriots and Traitors in Cuba: Political Pedagogy, Rehabilitation and Vanguard Youth, 1961-1981, under contract with Duke University Press.
Guerra’s creative writings include contributions to the work of Pulitzer-prize-winning photographer Alex Harris and photographer Cathryn Griffith as well as three collections of Spanish-language poetry, published in Quito, Ecuador, Havana, Cuba and Cimarrona (2013), published by Editorial Verbum in Madrid, Spain. She has also published a book of short stories, Cartografía Corporal with Editorial Verbum in 2014.
Guerra has received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and the American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship in 2014-2015. She holds the Waldo W. Neikirk term professorship for excellence in teaching at the University of Florida until 2019 and has recently received the University of Florida’s Research Foundation Professorship (2017-2020) for superb scholarship. The daughter of Cubans who came to the United States in 1965, Guerra was born in New York City and grew up in Marion, Kansas until her family moved to Miami, Florida she was fourteen. There she attended Gulliver Academy and Ransom Everglades School but left high school a year before graduating to attend Dartmouth College. She received her Ph.D. degree in history from the University of Wisconsin and has taught Cuban, Caribbean and Latin American history at Bates College (2000-2004), Yale University (2004-2010) and the University of Florida (2010-present).
Patricia Herrera ‘96
Associate Professor of Theater
University of Richmond
Patricia Herrera is an Associate Professor of Theater with a join appoint in the American Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexualities Studies programs at the University of Richmond. Her teaching and research focus on contemporary theater and performance with an emphasis on social justice, Latinx cultural production and identity politics. She is the author of the forthcoming book Nuyorican Feminist Performances: From the Café to Hip Hop Theater (University of Michigan Press, May 2020), which critically examines the work of female performance artists inspired by the Nuyorican Poets Cafe between 1973-2010. Since 2011 Dr. Herrera has engaged with the greater Richmond community on a public humanities project entitled “Civil Rights and Education in Richmond, Virginia: A Documentary Theater Project,” and has produced a series of six documentary plays. This project has also led to the creation of a digital archive—The Fight for Knowledge—and a physical archive at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) related to George Wythe High School, as well as two community exhibitions at The Valentine Museum—Made in Church Hill (2015) and Nuestras Historias: Latinos in Richmond (2017). Her writing appears in Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of MALCS, African American Review, Public: A Journal of Imagining America, Theatre Topics, and Café Onda: The Journal of the Latinx Theatre Commons. Her next book project, Sonic Latinidades: Latino Theater in the 21st Century, explores the centrality of sound to Latina/o performance.
Andrew Way Leong ‘03
Assistant Professor of English
University of California-Berkeley
Andrew Way Leong is a comparativist who works primarily in Japanese and English with additional interests in Spanish and Portuguese. He approaches the study of Asian American literature (and literatures of Asia and the Americas) with special attention to the generative frictions within and among multiple languages and literary traditions.
His research focuses on the literature of Japanese diasporas in the Americas as well as queer and critical theoretical approaches to the study of literary genre, gendered embodiment, and generational time. He is the translator of Lament in the Night (Kaya Press 2012), a collection of two novels by Shōson Nagahara, an author who wrote for a Japanese reading public in Los Angeles during the 1920s. He is also completing a manuscript entitled In the Time of Utopia: Queer and Mixed Origins of Japanese/American Literature. This book examines Japanese and English language texts written by Sadakichi Hartmann, Yoné Noguchi, Arishima Takeo, and Nagahara Shōson—authors who resided in the United States between the opening of mass Japanese emigration in 1885 and the ban on Japanese immigration imposed by the Immigration Act of 1924.
Prior to joining the faculty of UC Berkeley in 2018, Leong was an assistant professor of English and Asian Languages and Cultures at Northwestern University (2012-2018). He received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature (English, Japanese, Spanish) from UC Berkeley in 2012, and completed his B.A. in Comparative Literature (English, Spanish, Mathematics) at Dartmouth College in 2003.
He has taught courses on 19th and 20th century Japanese literature, American literature, Asian American literature, modernist literature in Asia, international law and literature, manga and graphic novels, and Westerns and Japanese period drama.
Marisol Negrón ‘93
Assistant Professor of American Studies and Latin@ Studies
Director, Latino Studies Program
University of Massachusetts-Boston
Marisol Negrón is an Assistant Professor with tenure in the Department of American Studies and the Latino Studies Program. She is affiliated with the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department and is a core faculty member of the graduate program in Critical Ethnic and Community Studies. Dr. Negrón is a founding member of the New England Consortium of Latina/o Studies. Since 2015 she has worked with the Latino Student Success Initiative, a collaboration between UMass Boston and Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown, Massachusetts, that supports the intellectual development of Latina/o students. She also sits on the board of directors of the Friends of the Hernández, a non-profit organization that supports the work of the Rafael Hernández K-8 Dual Immersion School in Boston.
Professor Negrón's research examines how cultural products transmit collective memories and social identities across generations of Latina/o communities. She is particularly interested in the complex and contradictory ways that cultural products reanimate, circulate, and transform meanings of Latinidad vis a vis questions of space, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, sound, medium, or other symbolic and material factors. Her book length manuscript, tentatively titled Made in NuYoRico: Salsa as Cultural Sign and Commodity (under contract with Duke University Press), traces salsa’s emergense as expressive culture and its development as a cultural product; how the music privileged the collective experiences of Puerto Ricans as racialized and colonial subjects as well as cultural agents; and how Nuyorican subjectivities embedded in the music impacted the music’s global flows, particularly to Puerto Rico.
Professor Negrón is originally from Bridgeport, Connecticut. A first-generation college student, she received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Davina R. Two Bears '90
Anne Ray Fellow
School for Advanced Research
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Davina Two Bears is a Diné, Navajo, originally from Birdsprings, Arizona. Her maternal clan is Tódích’íi’nii, Bitter Water, born for Táchii’nii, Red Running into the Water Clan; and her maternal grandfather’s clan is Tábąąhí, Edge Water, and her paternal grandfather’s clan is also Tódích’íi’nii. Davina was a 2017-2019 Eastman Fellow from the Program in Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. She is an Alumni of Dartmouth, where she majored in anthropology, and she also received a master’s degree in socio-cultural anthropology from Northern Arizona University. In 2019 Davina completed her dissertation and received her doctoral degree from Indiana University in Anthropology with an emphasis in Archaeology; and a PhD Minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies. Prior to her graduate education at Indiana University, Davina worked as a tribal archaeologist and program manager of the Navajo Nation Archaeology Department NAU Branch Office for fourteen years. She has published on the topic of Navajo and Indigenous Archaeology, and has written about her experience at Dartmouth in the book, “I Am Where I Come From: Native American College Students and Graduates Tell Their Life Stories” (2017 Garrod et al.). Her dissertation topic derives from her grandparents’ oral history about the Old Leupp Boarding School (OLBS) on the southwestern Navajo Reservation. Using decolonizing research methods, including interviews with Navajo elders and a critical analysis of historical records and photographs, Davina investigates the early history of the OLBS (1909-1942), which has never been thoroughly documented in the literature. Davina focuses on the survivance of Navajo children and how they resisted and survived assimilation within the context of the OLBS, an early twentieth century Federal Indian Boarding School.