Meet the Team

This initiative is made possible with the generous support of the Cummings Foundation and is led by an interdisciplinary team of faculty

Principal Investigators of the Initiative

Carey KastenDirector

Professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages and Cultures and affiliate faculty in Latin American and Latino Studies and Comparative Literature

Bio

Carey is a Professor of Spanish language, literature and culture. She researches Spanish-speaking communities in New York City and is the author of Mutuality in El Barrio (2024). In 2021, she curated the “Hostile Terrain 94” installation to memorialize lives lost in the Sonoran Desert. She is currently collaborating with Radio Huayacocotla on a research project about family reunification. Dr. Kasten teaches courses on migration realities in Spanish-speaking communities, including her new course, “La Frontera: Art as Resistance.” She is a co-founder of Fordham’s “Initiative on Migrants, Migration and Human Dignity.”

Gregory T. Donovan

Associate Professor in the Department of Communication & Media Studies and affiliate faculty in Urban Studies and Design & Technology

Bio

Gregory’s research and teaching broadly explore the intersections of digital media and migration justice and his current ethnographic work in NYC and at the U.S.-Mexico border explores how local communities develop technosocial accompaniment practices to counter the logics of an “everywhere border” that increasingly cyberstalks people in migration.

Leo Guardado

Associate Professor in the Department of Theology

Bio

Leo was born in the mountains of Chalatenango, El Salvador during the country’s civil war. Forced to leave El Salvador as a boy, he grew up in Los Angeles, California and attended college in the bay area. An interest in monastic life took him to live for a time in the Cistercian (Trappist) Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux in Vina, CA before pursuing a Master of Theological Studies (MTS) in patristics at the University of Notre Dame. He later worked ecumenically in the Tucson, Arizona borderlands with churches, dioceses, and NGOs, collaborating across theological and political differences in solidarity with migrant communities. He has a PhD from the University of Notre Dame in both systematic theology and international peace studies, a joint program between the theology department and the Kroc Institute at the School of Global Affairs at Notre Dame.

Annika Marlen Hinze

Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and affiliate faculty in Urban Studies and Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies

Bio

Annika served as the Director of the Urban Studies Program from July 2016 through June 2024. Her research and teaching focus on urban politics, immigration policy and social, racial and immigrant justice in cities. In addition to her journal articles, she has published several books on immigrant integration, immigrant justice, and urban politics. She is the co-editor of the International Political Science review and an editorial board member of the Urban Affairs Review and Fordham University Press. Annika has done field research in Canada, Germany, Turkey, and the United States and is currently writing a book about U.S. immigration policy.

Sarah P. Lockhart

Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Director of International Studies

Bio

Sarah is the co-editor of Introduction to International Migration: Population Movements in the 21st Century (Routledge 2021; 2nd edition forthcoming) and the co-author of Migration Crises and the Structure of International Cooperation (University of Georgia 2018). She also has written about the implications of international efforts to combat human trafficking and smuggling, and the potential of international efforts to protect migrant rights. Currently, she is focused on how efforts to enhance international cooperation on “migration management” may impact human security in countries of origin and transit, especially during times of conflict or crisis.

Jim McCartin

Associate Professor in the Department of Theology

Bio

Jim joined Fordham’s Theology Department and the Center on Religion and Culture in 2011. Previously, he served in the History Department at Seton Hall University where he was also associate director of the Center for Catholic Studies and a member of the University Honors Program faculty. In 2006-07, he was a visiting fellow at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion.

Alma Rodenas-Ruano

Associate Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Natural Science and Director of Integrative Neuroscience

Bio

Alma is a developmental neuroscientist, whose research focuses on understanding how external cues shape normal development of brain circuits via epigenetic mechanisms, and on the impact that aberrant environments have on survival, neuronal development and behavior.