Mentoring
I look forward to mentoring students at UCSD and continuing my relationships with students from Willamette University and the University of Washington.
If you are a current or former student seeking a letter of recommendation, please look at Jack Gieseking’s advice: https://jgieseking.org/recommendation-writing-policy/ While I do not have a formal policy (like Jack), the earlier you ask and with the more detail you can share makes it possible for me to say ‘yes’ the first time. After I have written a letter of recommendation for you once, it’s much easier for me to write the next one.
Image: Book cover for Cartographic Memory
Graduate Seminars
I have facilitated graduate seminars on topics including Abolition, Indigenous Methods (with Jean Dennison), and Race & Radical Placemaking.
At UCSD, I facilitated COMM296 in Spring 2025, which is only open to students in the Communication PhD. I look forward to developing courses as part of the UCSD community in future years.
As I continue to work with students in UW Geography, I am not recruiting UCSD graduate students in the 2025-2026 admissions cycle.
I work with graduate students who are thinking with abolition geographies, migrations and/or environmental justice. An important part of my mentorship is helping students navigate academia, including seeking funding, getting published and learning networks. (I support students on all paths, but I have spent the last twenty years in academia.) While we read, think and write together, MA/PhD students develop their own dissertation projects.
Prospective graduate students should have at least two years relevant experience – for example, organizing for climate justice, working as a language interpreter for immigrants and mixed status families, or directly impacted by their proposed research. Graduate students should have demonstrated capabilities to collaborate with the communities where they plan to conduct research, including language proficiencies. I am most interested in working with students who are planning research in the US, Mexico, Central America and/or the Caribbean (not South America).
Pictured above, all of the best people
Diego Martinez-Lugo (book chapter published in Urban Climate Justice)
Olivia Orosco (published in CNS and The Professional Geographer)
Wesley Carrasco (published in The Professional Geographer)