About

Born and raised in Mexico, I finished high school in the western suburbs of Chicago before pursuing undergraduate studies at Northwestern University. With a major in philosophy and minors in critical theory and Latin American history, I mainly studied modern European philosophy, especially the German critical tradition from Kant to Habermas.

For my graduate studies, I wanted to expand beyond the European tradition. I found a transdisciplinary approach under the guidance of Nelson Maldonado-Torres in the Comparative Literature Program at Rutgers University. There I embraced the decolonial turn, focusing on Latin American and Caribbean philosophy.

As a doctoral student at Rutgers, I won the Erna Neuse Prize for Best Graduate Essay in German Studies and also earned a certificate in Women’s & Gender Studies. My scholarship and pedagogy were shaped by spaces of collaboration, such as the Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies, the Decoloniality Workshop, and a 2-year inter-university reading group hosted by the late feminist philosopher Drucilla Cornell. My last year, I was a 2019-2020 Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow in philosophy.

In 2020, I became Assistant Professor at DePaul‘s Department of Philosophy and was additionally awarded the American Philosophical Association’s Essay Prize in Latin American Thought. At DePaul, I have been Director of the Philosophy Teaching Practicum and I am currently on the advisory boards for the Honors Program and the Center for Religion, Culture and Community.

Outside of my research and teaching, I am Book Review Editor of Philosophy and Global Affairs and Co-Chair of the Secularism and Secularity Unit at the American Academy of Religion (AAR). I am a steering committee member of the AAR’s Religion, Colonialism, and Postcolonialism Unit, and retain a long-time collaborative relationship with the Latin American Philosophy of Education Society.