Guest Speakers - January 26th, 2021 | UTRGV

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Guest Speakers - January 26th, 2021

Dr. Alyssa Cavazos

Associate Professor / Director

(956) 665-3795

alyssa.cavazos@utrgv.edu

Dr. Alyssa Cavazos

Dr. Alyssa Cavazos
Associate Professor / Director
Center for Teaching Excellence
Email: alyssa.cavazos@utrgv.edu
Phone: (956) 665-3795
Phone Alt: (956) 882-7334

Alyssa G. Cavazos is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies in the Department of Writing and Language Studies and Director for the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She teaches undergraduate and graduate coursework in writing studies. Her pedagogical and scholarly interests include: language difference in the teaching of writing, translingual writing across communities, professional development in higher education, and border rhetorics. She was awarded the University of Texas System 2017 Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and the 2017 UTRGV Excellence Award in Teaching. She is committed to designing linguistically inclusive pedagogies, which can lead to students’ academic success across academic disciplines in higher education.

Dr. Cynthia Paccacerqua

Associate Professor

(956) 665-3552

cynthia.paccacerqua@utrgv.edu

Dr. Cynthia Paccacerqua

Dr. Cynthia Paccacerqua
Associate Professor
Department of Philisophy
ELABS 357
Email: cynthia.paccacerqua@utrgv.edu
Phone: (956) 665-3552

Ph.D., State University of New York, Stony Brook

Dr. Cynthia Paccacerqua is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Faculty in Mexican American Studies. A Baltimore native who spent her formative years in Rosario Argentina, she received her Ph.D in Philosophy from SUNY Stony Brook in 2010. She joined the Department of Philosophy at UTPA (UTRGV’s legacy institution) immediately after graduation.

Dr. Paccacerqua specializes in social, political, and cultural philosophy within the traditions of Western, Latina-o, and Latin American/Decolonial Philosophy, as well as in Modern Philosophy, Kant’s theoretical philosophy in particular. She earned a MA in Latin American Studies from Stanford University in 2000.

She is currently working on two research projects: 1. On the underlying epistemological relationships between ideal liberal social contract theory and neoclassical economics, within a framework of critical race theory. 2. On the critical philosophy of Gloria Anzaldúa, grounded in the history of deep South and South Texas.

In 2014 Dr. Paccacerqua was awarded the University Teaching Excellence Award. Courses she has taught:

Feminist Theories

Latina Feminist Philosophy

Modern Philosophy

Special Topics in Philosophy: Philosophy of Culture

Special Topics in Philosophy: Materialisms

Special Topics in Latin American Philosophy: Decoloniality

Introduction to Philosophy

Ethics, Happiness, and the Good Life

She is the Department’s Coordinator for the Anzaldúa Speaker Series in Philosophy at UTRGV; and Editor of the soon to be relaunched Rio Bravo: A Journal of the Borderlands.

Dra. Silvia Solis

Lecturer I

silvia.solis01@utrgv.edu

Dra. Silvia Solis

Dra. Silvia Solis
Lecturer I
School of Interdisciplinary Programs & Community Engagement
BSABH 2.420
Email: silvia.solis01@utrgv.edu

Silvia Patricia Solís is a lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Programs and Community Engagement where she currently teaches Environmental Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Mexican American Studies. She is the Art Editor of Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies published by The University of Nebraska Press. Solís also produces and is the co-host of The Feminist Hour/La Hora Feminista on Vaquero Radio, UTRGV’s student station. Solís was born in Heroica Matamoros, Tamaulipas, then later moved to Brownsville, Texas with her family. She earned her Ph.D. in Social Foundations of Education with a focus on the Anthropology of Education from the University of Utah in 2020. Her research expands on land and place-based epistemologies, pedagogies, and methodologies by tracing saberes curativos, knowings and practices people hold in relation to taking care and curing within family and community. It centers the feminism, intergenerational learning, remembering, and everyday practices in the home and gardens of Indigenous, Black, and Afro-descendant peoples in the Mesoamerican diaspora living along the U.S. Mexico border. U.S. Women of color feminists, Indigenous feminists, Black feminists, and Decolonial feminists are at the center of her theoretical foundations.

Dr. Mayra Ortiz Galarza

Assistant Professor

(956) 882-5199

mayra.ortizgalarza@utrgv.edu

Dr. Mayra Ortiz Galarza

Dr. Mayra Ortiz Galarza
Assistant Professor
School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences
BLHSB 2.526
Email: mayra.ortizgalarza@utrgv.edu
Phone: (956) 882-5199

Dr. Mayra Ortiz Galarza is an Assistant Professor in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. Dr. Ortiz advances and supports STEM education research and reforms. She uses project-based learning to advance professional practice in STEM education. Dr. Ortiz has been an educator in multiple cultural settings and serves as a role model, mentor, and innovator of ways to improve minority and underserved students’ participation in STEM.