About

My Story. My Work.

I’m a blind researcher, educator, and community leader with 10+ years of experience in strategic planning, program design, and evaluation aimed at reducing systemic inequities rooted in race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and disability. My work begins from a simple premise: equitable inclusion grows when we learn to live alongside—and learn from—different ideas, traditions, and creations. Education is structured empathy.

I am a bilingual (Spanish–English) scholar–practitioner working at the intersection of higher education, disability studies, and equity-centered organizational change. I serve as Associate Professor of Spanish and Affiliated Faculty in Race, Ethnicity & Gender Studies at the University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC). Within faculty governance, I have led as elected Faculty President of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. A recognized DEI content expert, I facilitate and direct DEI Learning through UMKC’s Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence, focusing on Inclusive Program Design, Decolonial Research Methods, and Universal Design for Learning.

Previously, I held a concurrent role as Senior Research Associate at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Diversity Institute (2023–2024), where I led mixed-methods EDI projects to identify and remove workplace barriers in partnership with public and private organizations, including Laurentian Bank, Employment and Social Development Canada, and the Royal Ontario Museum.

Beyond skills-development initiatives, my research and teaching advance disability as method, crip-informed inquiry, and inclusive design across the Americas. My first book, Queer Argentina: Movements Towards the Closet in a Global Time (Palgrave, 2017), and my forthcoming monograph, Criptic Inquiry and the Cultural Circuits of Disability, center community-building and the cultural circuits formed by historically marginalized groups. I also edit the forthcoming anthology Toward Dissent: Accessing Political Struggle Across the Americas (University of Toronto Press), which reflects on the methodological, linguistic, and material ways we—scholars, activists, participants—engage struggle and change.

I build accessible learning ecosystems. I design large-scale DEI trainings, data-driven program assessments, and cross-sector partnerships, and I recently convened Disability Commons (UMKC, Oct 16, 2025), a hybrid gathering for knowledge sharing and community building. Across academic, policy, and nonprofit settings, I translate rigorous scholarship into practical tools for equity, accountability, and institutional change.