Join us for a rich and interdisciplinary dialogue on the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of trade, security, and migration. This conference is co-sponsored by MIT-Mexico, UNAM Boston and UMass Boston, and will bring together scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to explore the evolving dynamics of the U.S.–Mexico relationship.

Please RSVP here.

SPEAKERS:

Diane E. Davis is the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) and domain head of the publics track in the Master of Design Studies Program. Trained as a sociologist, Davis’s research interests include urban governance, urban social movements, the politics of planning, and conflict in cities. Her books include Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Conflicts in the Urban Realm (Indiana University Press, 2011); Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2004); Irregular Armed Forces and their Role in Politics and State Formation (Cambridge University Press, 2003); and Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (Temple University Press 1994; Spanish translation 1999). In 2023 Davis was named a fellow of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research (CIFAR) as well as co-director of its Humanity’s Urban Future program. She is currently completing a book in the history of police corruption and impunity in Mexico.

Jorge Capetillo-Ponce is currently associate professor of sociology and Latino studies at University of Massachusetts, Boston. From 2016 to 2022 he was editor of the Sociology of the Caribbean section for the Library of Congress. He also taught courses and gave lectures from 2002-2021 in the culture program at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. Before he joined the faculty of sociology at UMASS Boston in 2002, Professor Capetillo-Ponce worked as executive director of the Mexican Cultural Institute in New York City (2000-2001) as advisor to the Dean of the Graduate Faculty at The New School (1996-2000), and as consultant to Latino/a grassroots organizations in New York City (2000-2002) and Boston (2002-present).

Capetillo-Ponce has published close to one hundred essays, studies, reports and journalistic articles on such issues as social theory, race and ethnic
relations, immigration, media studies, culture, consumption, art, religion, Latino Studies, Caribbean Studies, Mayan Studies, and US-Mexico relations. He is the co-author of one book (UMBRAL in 2022 with Juan San Juan) and editor of four books: (1) Images of Mexico in the US News Media in 2000; (2) A Foucault for the 21st Century (with Sam Binkley) in 2009; Migrant Marginality: A Transnational Perspective (with Glenn Jacobs and Philip Kretsedemas) in 2016: and Territorios Mayas e Interculturalidad (with Ever Canul) in 2025.

José Ignacio Hernández (Caracas, 1974), has a law degree from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, with a summa cum laude diploma (1997); an advanced study certificate from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2001) and a Juris Doctor from the Universidad Complutense with a summa cum laude diploma (2002). He is professor of administrative law at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, both in Venezuela. He also teaches economic constitutional law in the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. He has been professor of regulatory framework at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA), also in Venezuela.

He is the director of the Law Review of the Law Faculty of the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello.

He has written more than 100 academic articles published in Venezuela, Colombia, Argentine, Chile, Mexico, USA, Italy, Poland and Spain. He also has written 14 books.

Silvia Nuñez Garcia is a researcher at Center for Research on North America, from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, where she was director between 2009 and 2017. She also had the responsibility of directing the UNAM office in Los Angeles, California during 2021 and 2022. In 2019, the Government of Canada, through its
Embassy in Mexico, awarded her the “Canada-Mexico 75” recognition for her contribution to strengthening academic ties between the two nations. Throughout her career, she has been a visiting scholar at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Michigan State University and other prestigious institutions such as Georgetown University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Likewise, she was distinguished as a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the United States in 1999. She has postgraduate studies in Sociology from the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, UNAM. Member of the International Steering Committee of the Metropolis International Network; She served as Vice President of the Mexican Association for International Studies (AMEI). She works as a professor in the International Relations Division of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, UNAM. She has articles or chapters published in the United States, Chile, Argentina, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and China.

MODERATOR:

Chappell Lawson is an associate professor of political science at MIT. Professor Lawson’s recent work has focused on homeland security policy, Mexican politics, the effect of candidates’ physical appearance on their electoral success, and political leadership.

From September 2009 through February 2011, Professor Lawson was on leave from MIT as a political appointee in the Obama Administration, serving as executive director and senior advisor to the Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection. Before joining the MIT faculty, he served briefly as a director of Inter-American Affairs on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton Administration.

Professor Lawson was a national fellow at The Hoover Institution, Stanford University (2002-2003) and a visiting research fellow at the Center for US-Mexico Studies at the University of California, San Diego (1998-99). He received his PhD from Stanford University in 1999 and his AB from Princeton (the Woodrow Wilson School) in 1989.

Free & open to the public.

Contact mit-mexico@mit.edu with questions.