Beatriz Aldana Marquez

Beatriz Aldana Marquez is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut, affiliated with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences' Department of Sociology. She also serves as Core Faculty at El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies and Project Manager for Health, Violence, and Immigrant Detention Projects at Brown University's Justice Labs of America. Her research focuses on critical Latino/a/e sociology, immigration enforcement policies, and the intersection of race, class, and gender in institutional contexts. Professor Aldana Marquez is a first-generation college graduate and former undocumented immigrant who mentors undocumented and first-generation students.

Education: PhD (2017) in Sociology from Texas A&M University; BA (2012) in Gender & Sexuality Studies and Sociology from the University of Chicago.

Research emphasizes immigration detention conditions, racialized framing of ICE raids, and the cultural impacts of Mexican traditions like Charro Cowboy culture. Her work has been published in Transgender Health, Ethnicities, and Social Science & Medicine, and featured in Telemundo and major newspapers. She critiques systemic failures in immigration detention systems and advocates for marginalized communities through academic and applied projects.

Key contributions include her book From the Peaceable to the Barbaric (2019) analyzing Mexican rural traditions and recent studies on transgender victimization in detention centers. Her interdisciplinary work bridges sociological theory with urgent policy debates around immigration and social justice.