Meloddye Carpio Rios

Meloddye Carpio Rios is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), where she focuses on heritage language pedagogy, decolonial studies, and transfeminist approaches to Latin American and U.S. Latine cultural production. Her work emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration and social justice frameworks.

• Ph.D. in Hispanic Literary and Cultural Studies with Gender and Women’s Studies concentration, University of Illinois, Chicago (2022)
• M.A. in Latin American Literatures, University of California, Davis
• B.A. in Spanish Language and Literatures, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Her research interrogates constructions of masculinity in Peruvian visual arts, applying decolonial and transfeminist lenses to analyze how colonial histories shape gendered identities. She also develops inclusive teaching strategies for Latine and heritage language students, advocating for equity in higher education through digital resources.

Dr. Carpio Rios migrated from Peru to the U.S. as a teenager, maintains familial ties to Mexico, and identifies as “de aquí, de allá y de por allá.” Her first book project, Corporeal Excesses, Joyful Fluidity, and Indigenous Knowledges, examines unruly masculinities in Peruvian visual culture.