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I am a professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. Beginning July 1, 2023, I will be the director of the Hispanic Research Center and professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University.

Most recently, I was the director of the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement (2019-2022) and a Luce Public Fellow (2018-2020) at the Public Religion Research Institute. In 2010, I was a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the Social Sciences (REGSS) at Duke University as a Ford Foundation Post Doctoral Fellow.

I earned my Ph.D. in political science from Louisiana State University in 2008. My research and teaching interests focus on identity, with a particular concentration on  Latino politics, generational politics, state politics, and civic engagement. My research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation. I have presented my work at such forums as the Brookings Institute and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. I have also written for such media outlets as The Washington Post, The Hill, Reuters, and The Conversation.

I am a native of Colombia. When I was two years old, my parents immigrated to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where I grew up. I fluently speak, read, and write Spanish.