Mathilda Shepard

Dr. Mathilda Shepard is an Assistant Professor in the Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures department at Texas Tech University, specializing in Latin American Cultural Studies. Her work focuses on environmental humanities, Indigeneity, visual culture, and gender/sexuality studies. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia (2022), supported by a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship.

Her research examines Black and Indigenous movements in Colombia, analyzing how activist media challenge extractive capitalism and reimagine communal forms of life. Recent projects include Plantation Counterlives, funded by Texas Tech's Alumni College Fellowship and Spring Faculty Fellow program. She collaborates on Corrido Vibrante, an audiovisual project addressing water and extractivism in the Llano Estacado.

Dr. Shepard’s articles explore topics like Afro-Caribbean textile art, subterranean resistance in Colombia, and queer/Indigenous epistemologies. She teaches graduate seminars on biopolitics and cultural studies beyond the human, and contributes to Texas Tech’s Indigenous and Native American Studies program.

• Awards: Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Alumni College Fellowship (2024)
• Grants: Spring Faculty Fellow (2025)

Her scholarship bridges critical theory, environmental justice, and decolonial praxis, emphasizing multispecies solidarity and the politics of cultural production.