Alyshia Gálvez

Alyshia Gálvez is a Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at Lehman College and Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center. She previously served as Founding Director of the CUNY Mexican Studies Institute. Her research focuses on migration, public health, cultural and medical anthropology, with emphasis on Mexico and Mexican communities in the U.S. She has authored seminal works like Eating NAFTA: Trade, Food Policies and the Destruction of Mexico (2018), examining NAFTA's impact on food systems, and Guadalupe in New York (2009), exploring Mexican immigrant religious practices and citizenship.

Her work bridges academia and activism, addressing health disparities, food sovereignty, and migrant rights. Awards include the 2021 Lehman College Professors of Excellence Award and CUNY’s 2017 Book Completion Award. Gálvez leads interdisciplinary projects on chronic disease frameworks and food systems, collaborating with institutions like the Nutrire CoLab. She also engages in public discourse through media and speaking engagements, advocating for human-centered trade policies and food justice.

• Key Research Focus: Migration health, food policy, citizenship rights
• Grants: NIH-funded studies on diabetes behaviors, CUNY grants on food insecurity
• Public Engagement: Podcast contributions, policy commentary on NAFTA’s legacy
• Recent Projects: Ethnographic work on Indigenous food sovereignty and pedagogical critiques