NEW FACES

Abigail Cardona is a Freshman at Michigan State University and is interested in Business Finance. She was born in Lansing but relocated to Texas and after High school she knew she wanted to go back to Michigan State University to do her undergraduate studies. At only 3 years old, she was already marching the steps of the Lansing capital for Hispanic rights; she is not new to helping raise awareness! For her 15th birthday she created a fundraiser in lieu of birthday presents, where she collected toys for Mayan children. While on her birthday cruise her and her guests delivered these toys to Yucatan Mexico. Every year since then, she is proud to keep fundraising to help get more toys to Mayan villages. Abigail is looking forward to going to Europe and Mexico next year so she can continue to learn about different ways of life and hopes to find inspiration during her travel on where to start another toy fundraiser. After graduation she hopes to continue to travel and start her own business.

SEND OFFS

Jennifer Padilla, student Clerical assistant, graduated with a Bachelors in Interdisciplinary Studies and a Minor in Chicano Latino Studies and second minor in Theater. Padilla hopes to work as a paralegal focusing specifically on immigration issues. For now, she is focusing on expanding her lash business “Isashe”. She is proud to be one of the few Latinas in Flint, MI to operate a business. Through her business packaging she spreads her culture and religion. Jennifer worked at JSRI from October 2021 through July 2022.

SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS

Ereisa G. Morales is a first-generation student from Washington state. In 2019, she graduated from Eastern Washington University with a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice & Sociology. Upon graduating, Ereisa moved across the country to pursue a PhD in Sociology at Michigan State University. Throughout her academic journey she has identified three phenomena of interest: race and ethnicity, substance use, and family.

Ana Lucrecia Rivera is a Mexican-American Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences, a member of the Global Health and Medical Geography Laboratory, and a recipient of the Michigan State University Enrichment Fellowship. She is studying to become a health and medical geographer, utilizing geospatial technologies to analyze climate-social interactions in urban settings, specifically, how extreme heat weather events impact health and how these effects vary by demographic, socioeconomic, and institutional issues. Ana has collaborated with various research teams, including the NASA-Health and Air Quality Applied Science (HAQAST) Team, the Mexican Government, UC Berkeley, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Robin Morales, the working-class son of two Havana immigrants, was born in Lansing, Michigan and is currently a junior in the teacher preparation program at Michigan State University with a major in social science education and a minor in Chicano/Latino Studies. Having had no Latino teachers in his own K-12 education, and in reflecting on the countless ways that Chicano/Latino students can benefit from representation in the teaching profession, Robin was motivated to pursue public school education and aspires to teach future generations of students about Chicano/Latino history and activism as praxis for their own educational liberation.

NEW JSRI AFFILIATES

Linda C. Halgunseth joined the Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) at Michigan State University (MSU) as an associate professor in 2022. Professor Halgunseth held a joint appointment in HDFS and El Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies at the University of Connecticut (UConn) from 2012-2022 where she also served as the Director of Academic Affairs at UConn Hartford. Her research focuses on parenting and children’s well-being in Latinx, African American, and Asian American families. She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Research on Adolescence (JRA), and Lead Editor for JRA’s special issue, Truth is on the Side of the Oppressed: Oppressive Systems Affecting BIPOC youth. Dr. Halgunseth is Past Chair of the Latinx Caucus of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), a member of the SRCD Ethnic Racial Issues Committee, and a co-organizer of the SRCD Special Topics Meeting, Construction of the “Other”: Development, Consequences, and Applied Implications of
Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism (Puerto Rico). She received two Early Career Awards: one in teaching from American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and one in research from the SRCD Latinx Caucus. Professor Halgunseth has worked closely with the Latinx community by serving on the Boards of the Connecticut Community Foundation and Madre Latina Inc. in Waterbury, CT; and by creating youth programs with Centro Latino de Salud Educación y Cultura in Columbia, MO. She also served as a faculty advisor for the Latin American Student Organization (LASO) at the University of Connecticut. One of the reasons she joined MSU is because of the opportunity for strong academic and community collaborations that support and highlight Latinx families.

Dr. Celeste Campos-Castillo is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research examines how new
information and communication technologies may widen or narrow existing inequalities, with outcomes dependent on how well the design and implementation addresses digital divides and privacy concerns. The technologies she examines include social media, telehealth, patient portals, and electronic health records. The inequalities she examines are those along ethnoracial lines and gender, and she studies different age groups, but has a particular focus on high school aged adolescents. She is a methodologist and uses a range of research methods, including experiments, surveys, archives, interviews, and focus groups. Her research appears in academic journals such as Annual Review of Sociology, Health Affairs, Journal of Adolescent Health, Journal of the American Medical Informatics, Journal of Medical Internet Research, Journals of Gerontology, and Sociological Theory. Her research has received funding from Meta Research, National Endowment for the Arts, National Science Foundation, and Technology and Adolescent Mental Wellness program. In addition, she has received several professional accolades and most recently received the 2022 Early Career Award from the Midwest Sociological Society. She received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Iowa in 2012 and from 2012 to 2014 she was a post-doctoral research fellow in the Institute for Security, Technology, and Society at Dartmouth College. In January 2023, she will join the faculty in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University.