Anna Ochoa O'Leary
Dr. Anna Ochoa O'Leary, is Professor and Department Head. She received her doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Arizona. Her dissertation, "Investment in Female Education as an Economic Strategy among U.S.-Mexican Households in Nogales, Arizona," was supported by NSF funding. Since 2002, she has taught a range of classes for the Department. Currently, she teaches two graduate classes, Mexican Migration, and the Feminization of Migration, and an undergraduate class, Latin American Migration and the Remaking of the U.S.
She has a text book to her credit, a Chicano Studies textbook based on her teaching Overview of Mexican American Studies (MAS 265), which was published in 2007 by Kendall Hunt Publishing. More recently, she co-edited Unchartered Terrain: New Directions in Border Research Method and Ethics. (University of Arizona Press, 2013) and is editor of Undocumented Immigrants in the United States Today: An Encyclopedia of their Experiences (ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Press, 2014).
Dr. O'Leary is twice a Fulbright Scholar for research on repatriated migrant women (2007-2008), and for research on returned immigrant youth and educational goal setting (2021-2022). She was also Public Voices "Thought Leader" Fellow for 2014-2015, and Academic Leadership Fellow in 2015-2016.
Her current research and teaching interests continue to focus on the undocumented immigration to the US, education, culture and urban politics of Mexican/U.S.-Mexican populations, the political economy of the U.S.-Mexico border, and gender issues. Her community activities include participation in several non-profit community-based groups, such as the Coalición de Derechos Humanos and Fundación México.