Lead Researchers

Dr. Faye Gleisser

Associate Professor

An interdisciplinary art historian and curator of 20th and 21st century art, specializing in the history and theory of biopolitics, and expressions of gendered and sexualized raciality in the visual and material culture of the United States, with a special focus on photography, performance, and the art and theory of the African diaspora. Her first book, Risk Work: Making Art and Guerrilla Tactics in Punitive America, 1967-1987 (U Chicago Press, 2023) was awarded the Smithsonian’s 2025 Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Outstanding Scholarship in American Art. Gleisser’s current book project cross-examines medical surveillance, the history of endocrinology, and somatic art practice.  

Dr. Hyeyoung Kwon

Associate Professor

Associate Professor of Sociology at Indiana University, Bloomington, and the author of the award-winning book Language Brokers: Children of Immigrants Translating Inequality and Belonging for their Families. Her research expertise spans race, immigration, family, gender, childhood, and qualitative methods. Using a comparative and intersectional approach, Dr. Kwon theorizes the politics of inclusion and exclusion, examining how racialized and gendered understandings of immigrants shape unequal access to resources and shape how families navigate institutions to safeguard their well-being. In addition to her book, her work has appeared in leading journals, including American Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Childhood.  

Dr. Juan Mora

Assistant Professor

A historian of Latinxs, race, labor, and popular culture whose work questions the meaning of foodways, migration, and citizenship in the modern United States. He received his PhD in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2021. Afterwards, he completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship with Indiana University, Bloomington’s Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society (CRRES). Currently, Mora is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Latino Studies Program. His current book project, Latinx Encounters: How Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Rican Made the Modern Midwest, is forthcoming with the University of North Carolina Press’ Latinx Histories series in Fall 2026.