Dr. Michelle Téllez

UA Mexican American Studies Liaison, Barrio Stories in Barrio Anita

For 20 years, Dr. Téllez has been committed to exploring shared human experiences and advancing social justice. An interdisciplinary scholar trained in sociology, Chicana/o studies, community studies and education, her work seeks to uncover stories of identity, transnational community formation, gendered migration, resistance, and Chicana mothering.

Dr. Téllez has published in several book anthologies, and in journals such as Gender & SocietyFeminist FormationsAztlán, and Chicana/Latina Studies; and in online outlets such as The Feminist WireTruth Out and Latino Rebels. She has been involved in multiple projects for change at the grassroots level utilizing critical pedagogy, principles of sustainability, community-based arts, performance, and visual media.

Dr. Téllez is a founding member of the Chicana M(other)work Collective and the Binational Artist in Residency project. She is on the editorial review board for Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, on the executive board of directors for the Southwest Folklife Alliance and is the Faculty Fellow for the Guerrero Student Center.

In 2004-2005, she was a dissertation fellow in the department of Chicana/o Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. For the 2007-2008 academic year she was a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Latina/o Studies Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Téllez is a former Mellon Fellow for the Future of Minority Studies (FMS) Research Project at Cornell University and a 2017-2018 Tucson Public Voices Fellow for the OpEd Project. Dr. Téllez taught at Arizona State University for nine years, at Northern Arizona University for two years, and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Mexican American Studies Department at the University of Arizona.