Gema Kloppe-Santamaría

Gema Kloppe-Santamaría is an Associate Research Professor of Latin American History at George Washington University, specializing in violence, crime, religion, and gender in 20th and 21st century Mexico and Central America. She holds affiliations with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Noria Research’s Mexico & Central America Program. Her work bridges historical analysis with contemporary policy, focusing on how state institutions and societal norms shape perceptions of justice and violence.

Education: Ph.D. in Social Research from The New School (2016).

Her research explores:

• Lynchings as manifestations of state-citizen tensions
• Religious influences on violence legitimacy
• Gender dynamics in crime and security
• Cross-border gang networks

Key publications include In the Vortex of Violence (2020), analyzing post-revolutionary Mexico's lynching culture, and co-authored projects on comparative violence in Mexico and Central America. Her current projects investigate religious violence legitimacy in Mexico and transnational crime dynamics.

Awards:

• 2022 LASA Mexico Section Best Article
• 2022 CLAH Book Prize Honorable Mention
• 2021 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award
• Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Award (2020)

Grants and collaborations include the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Her work appears in Foreign Affairs, Harvard ReVista, and other outlets.