Rebecca Maria Torres

Rebecca Maria Torres is Professor in the Department of Geography & the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin's College of Liberal Arts. She holds additional affiliations as associate of the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS), associate of the Population Research Center (PRC), and affiliate of the Center for Women's and Gender Studies (CWGS).

Dr. Torres earned her BA in History, Ibero-American Studies, and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, followed by an MS in International Agricultural Development and a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California at Davis.

Her research focuses on the complex intersections of migration, gender, and geography, with particular attention to Mexican and Central American contexts. She employs feminist and decolonial frameworks to examine children and youth geographies, forced displacement, and activist scholarship. Her work challenges conventional narratives about migration and centers the experiences of vulnerable populations.

Her extensive publication record demonstrates consistent engagement with critical border studies, feminist geography, and migration research. Torres' scholarship reveals a clear trajectory of increasingly nuanced analysis of migrant experiences, particularly children and youth, with growing emphasis on decolonial feminist approaches to understanding displacement and border regimes.

Dr. Torres actively engages in community-based research partnerships, including the establishment of the Los Puentes Spanish-English dual-language immersion program in North Carolina and collaboration with Proyecto de Defensa Laboral on construction workers' conditions in Austin. Her teaching includes courses like GRG 390L (Research in Geography) and UGS 303/302 (Latinx Migration Narratives).

She leads significant research initiatives including the Geographies of Displacement project (NSF & CONTEX PROJECT), which examines Mexican migrant/refugee children and youth in the Sonora-Arizona borderlands through a mixed-methods binational approach. This work represents her commitment to translating research into practical applications for vulnerable populations.