Alumni Spotlight

We are proud to feature the stories of LLILAS alumni. Do you have know someone who should be featured on this page? Please send story ideas to Communications Coordinator Susanna Sharpe.

Ronda L. Brulotte

Ronda L. Brulotte, Professor of Geography and Environmental Sciences

Interdisciplinary scholar Ronda Brulotte earned a master's in Latin American Studies from ILAS (soon to be LLILAS) in 1999, followed by a PhD in Anthropology in 2006, also from UT Austin. She is professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences and dean of Graduate Studies at the University of New Mexico.

Brulotte is the author, most recently, of Mezcal in Oaxaca: A Craft Spirit for the Global Marketplace (UT Press, 2025). Her previous books are Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage (Routledge, 2014); Between Art and Artifact: Archaeological Replicas and Cultural Production in Oaxaca, Mexico (UT Press, 2012).

"My time in the Latin American Studies program at UT was formative," writes Brulotte. "Not only did I find anthropology as a field of study that would set me on my career path as an ethnographer working in Mexico, but I also learned the value of tackling big questions from an interdisciplinary perspective. My master's program also exposed me to sociology, ethnomusicology, language and cultural studies, and geography. I still approach any research I undertake through an interdisciplinary lens."

In praising Mezcal in Oaxaca, Edward F. Fisher of Vanderbilt University cites Brulotte's "sharp ethnographic eye" in presentinig a compelling story of mezcal's rise to global prominence that is broadly accessible. "But Brulotte's genius is in using mezcal as a window to understand Oaxaca today—as it fits into the Mexican and global political economy, as embedded in global cultural currents, the often-hidden role of women, and the complicated ways artisanal production takes place in a free-market context." (Fisher is the author of Making Better Coffee: How Maya Farmers and Third-Wave Tastemakers Create Value.)

Prisca Gayles

Prisca Gayles, Professor of Sociology

Prisca Gayles earned her PhD at LLILAS (2020) and is assistant professor of Sociology and Gender, Race, and Identity at the University of Nevada, Reno.

She is the author of Pain into Purpose: Mobilizing Emotions in Argentina's Black Resistance Movement (Cambridge University Press, December 2024).

From the press: " 'Pain into Purpose' is a groundbreaking exploration of Argentina's Movimiento Negro (Black resistance movement). Employing a multi-year ethnography of Black political organizing, Prisca Gayles delves deep into the challenges activists face in confronting the erasure and denial of Argentina's Black past and present."

Ana Kearney, Social Worker

Ana Kearney graduated from LLILAS and the Steve Hicks School of Social Work in August 2022 following the completion of her thesis, “Which Box to Check? How Transracial and International Adoptees from Latin America Develop Their Racial and Ethnic Identities.” She currently lives in Philadelphia, PA, and is pursuing a career in social work. She plans to continue researching adoption and issues that affect adoptees.

Kearney wrote about the personal story at the center of her master's research in a compelling article for this year's Portal magazine. Read it here.

Miguel Gutiérrez, Jr.

Miguel Gutiérrez Jr., Photojournalist

Miguel Gutiérrez Jr. is a photographer, photographer, videographer, and photojournalist from Chicago. He is currently visual editor at CalMatters in Sacramento, California. Prior to that, he was a photo editor at the Texas Tribune. Miguel graduated from UT in 2015 with a dual master's degree Latin American Studies (LLILAS) and Journalism.

Miguel began community college at the age of 26, eventually transferring to the University of Illinois, Chicago, for his undergraduate degree. His interest in immigration and activism with DREAMers eventually led him to LLILAS. "The J-School and LLILAS dual-degree program at UT were easy to navigate, and there was good crossover with professors and classes. I'm happy that I was able to combine my two interests and pursue them concurrently. My work in the field while working on a video, or photographing while out with reporters, has been stronger because my LLILAS degree provides me with the context and understanding of the challenges facing certain areas of Latin America, and those impacts on communities in the U.S." Read the full profile.

Elizabeth O'Brien

Elizabeth O'Brien, Historian of Medicine

Updated January 2026 — Elizabeth O’Brien is associate professor of the History of Medicine and Latin American History at UCLA. Prior to this post, she was assistant professor in the Department of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. She holds a master’s and doctoral degrees from The University of Texas at Austin, where she pursued the LLILAS MA program and Latin American history from the Department of History. She is author of the award-winning book Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770–1940 (2023).

"LLILAS completely changed my understanding of Latin America, and, most importantly, it was a space for critical reflection on accountability and positionality in academia as a person with white privilege who studies Mexican history. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have studied at LLILAS Benson and I hope that the many-ways-of-knowing that I was exposed to at LLILAS will stay with me forever." Read the full profile.

Rui Jie Peng

Rui Jie Peng, Sociologist

Updated January 2026 — Rui Jie Peng earned her master’s from LLILAS in 2015 and graduated from UT Austin in May 2022 with a doctorate in sociology. She is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Prior to that appointment, Peng held a tenure-track position in the Department of Sociology at Lafayette College. Her research interests include political sociology, gender, ethnicity, labor, migration, development, ethnography, globalization, and China.

“My journey at LLILAS introduced me to the world of intellectual inquiries based on vigorous and socially responsible empirical research with underrepresented and marginalized populations in the Global South. . . . From there, I embarked on my doctoral training and became a sociologist and ethnographer passionate about understanding emerging gender, race/ethnicity, labor, and development issues and inequalities in China as well as Latin America." Read the full profile.

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Meztli Yoalli Rodríguez Aguilera, Professor & Author

Updated January 2026 — Meztli Yoalli Rodríguez Aguilera is assistant professor of Latin American and Latino at DePaul University. She was previously assistant professor of Latinx and Latin American Studies and Anthropology at Lake Forest College. She was awarded a 2021 National Women’s Studies Association/University of Illinois Press First Book Prize for her doctoral dissertation, “Grieving Geographies, Mourning Waters: Race, Gender and Environmental Struggles on the Coast of Oaxaca, Mexico” (UT Austin, 2021).

At the center of Rodríguez’s work is a dying ecosystem, the Chacahua-Pastoría lagoons on the Pacific Coast of Oaxaca, which became polluted and deprived of oxygen due to a failed ecotourism project sponsored by the Mexican government. “The ecocidal death of the Chacahua-Pastoría lagoons has a symbolic and structural relationship to an expanding landscape of death in the region—specifically, a landscape of death that is racialized and gendered,” she explains. Read the full profile.