Institute for the Study of the Americas

Deborah Bender

Clinical professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management. She researched healthcare access and the quality of healthcare among Latinos and Latino immigrants to the United States.
dbender@email.unc.edu

Sergio Chavez

Postdoctoral scholar in Sociology. His research focuses on internal and international migration; sociology of labor markets; race relations; and ethnography.
schavez@email.unc.edu

Paul Cuadros

Assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He worked as an award-winning journalist focusing on the issues of race and poverty. In 1999, he was awarded an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship to write and report on the impact of emerging Latino communities on the rural South. He is currently a freelance writer for Time magazine and working on a book, A Home on the Field, which looks at Latino migration to the American South. The book is now in Spanish and it is called Un Juego Sin Fronteras. He continues to report and write about Latino youth, their issues and on Latino migration.
pcuadros@mindspring.com

Hannah Gill

Applied anthropologist and Assistant Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas and Research Associate at the Center for Global Initiatives. She coordinates the 287g Immigration Policy working group. Dr. Gill is currently working on a study that examines the consequences of local anti-immigration policies in North Carolina.
hgill@email.unc.edu

Jacqueline Hagan

Associate professor of Sociology. Her research interests include international migration between Latin America and the United States; migration and human rights; social justice and migration; and international migration and labor markets.
jhagan@unc.edu

James H. Johnson Jr.

William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of entrepreneurship and director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center. His research interests include community and economic development, the effects of demographic changes on the U.S. workplace, interethnic minority conflict in advanced industrial societies, urban poverty and public policy in urban America, and workforce diversity issues. With John Kasarda he co-authored the 2006 Kenan Flagler Hispanic Economic Impact Study.
JohnsonJ@kenan-flagler.unc.edu

Nichola Lowe

Assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. His research focuses on Latino immigrant labor market incorporation and skill formation through a study of immigrant workers and entrepreneurs in the U.S. construction industry.
nlowe@email.unc.edu

Nina Martin

Assistant Professor of Geography. Her research focuses on urban planning and policy, including economic and community development, immigration and local political conflicts, restructuring of urban labor markets, the management of nonprofit organizations, and the transnational lives of migrants.
ninam@email.unc.edu

Ted Mouw

Associate professor of Sociology. His research interests include immigration and the labor market for Hispanic immigrants in North Carolina.
tedmouw@email.unc.edu

Mai Nguyen

Assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Dr. Nguyen’s research and teaching centers around understanding inequalities that exist within the physical and social world and employing urban planning methods to address these inequalities. Dr. Nguyen is currently working on a study that examines the consequences of local anti-immigration policies in North Carolina.
mai@unc.edu

Krista Perreira

Health economist. His latest work focuses on migration from Latin America and the health and educational consequences of migration.
perreira@email.unc.edu

Lucila Vargas

Associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her main academic interest is communication for social change.
lcvargas@email.unc.edu

Deborah Weissman

Executive Committee member for The Consortium in Latin American Studies, at the UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University, and is a member of the Advisory Board with The Institute for the Study of the Americas at UNC. She is a professor of law whose research interests include immigration law and human rights policy.
weissman@email.unc.edu

Mary Donegan

Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her current research considers the varied impacts of state and local immigrant policies.
mdonegan@email.unc.edu

Sandra Hinderliter

Senior International Studies major. She spent the summer of 2008 leading a Project El Gusano, a Nourish International project in Guanajuato, Mexico, where her work included teaching, developing a youth group, and researching the impact of migration to the U.S. on family separation. Her current research focuses on the repercussions of 287g on Hispanic immigrants in Alamance County in terms of family separation.
sandra.hinderliter@gmail.com

Will Mendoza

Masters Student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. His current research analyzes 287g immigration policy and the economic impact of immigrants in North Carolina.
wmendoza@email.unc.edu

Ian Smith Overman

Senior Latin American Studies major. He traveled to Guanajuato, Mexico with support from the Julia Crane Award to study crime against Latino immigrants living in the United States.
ismithov@email.unc.edu

Joe Wiltberger

Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology. His research examines Salvadorian migration to the United States.
jwilt@email.unc.edu

Holly Worthen

Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography. Her work centers on issues of development, gender, immigration, and agriculture in the United States and Mexico.
wholly@email.unc.edu