Marcela Vásquez-León, PhD

2024 University Distinguished Outreach Faculty Award

Dr. Vásquez-León has spent more than 20 years working with rural communities in Latin America and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Her research focuses on environmental conflict and maritime anthropology; social vulnerability to climate change; grassroots development and collective organization; and human rights and violent displacement.

Dr. Vásquez-León works to provide learning opportunities for her students outside the classroom. She teaches courses on environment and conflict; drug wars and oil fortunes; and Mexican food and culture, which features a spring-break trip to Oaxaca, Mexico. She has led a study abroad program in Cuba and began in internship program in Brazil, as well as a summer language program in Guatemala.  

She is collaborating with colleagues in Colombia for another study abroad program there and is working with colleagues in Uruguay on an online course about Indigenous languages in North America and South America. 

Award announcement from the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences