Biography

Dr. Alejandro Lugo (Stanford Ph.D., Wisconsin M.A.) is a proud NMSU anthropology B.A. alumnus, Class of '85, who was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua and was raised on both sides of the Juárez-El Paso-Las Cruces region.  Dr. Lugo is an anthropologist, photographer, editor, and educator. He has taught at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, the University of Texas at El Paso, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (where he taught for 20 years), and most recently, from 2015 to 2018, at Arizona State University. In 2019, Dr. Lugo was awarded the "2019 Star of Arts and Sciences" by New Mexico State University's College of Arts and Sciences. 

 

Dr. Lugo is the author of multiple scholarly articles and book chapters and of the award-winning book, Fragmented Lives, Assembled Parts: Culture, Capitalism, and Conquest at the U.S.-Mexico Border (University of Texas Press, https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/lugfra as well as co-editor of the feminist anthropology volume, Gender Matters: Rereading Michelle Rosaldo (University of Michigan Press, https://www.press.umich.edu/16026/gender_matters. His ethnographic photographs have been published as photo essays in such scholarly journals as South Atlantic Quarterly (2006), Religion and Society: Advances in Research (2015), and the Review of International American Studies (2018), and have been exhibited in galleries and museums in Chicago, New York City, Phoenix, and in the El Paso-Las Cruces region. Dr. Lugo has contributed to national public engagement through his Letters to the Editor in such major newspapers as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times. 

 

Dr. Lugo was instrumental in establishing the "Bradley A. Blake Prize in Anthropology" in honor of his NMSU anthropology mentor, the late Dr. Brad Blake. In addition to his scholarly work and his national public engagement, Dr. Lugo also serves as Vice-President of the Board of Directors of "Ngage New Mexico" ngagenm.org, a non-profit organization that focuses on improving the educational outcomes of New Mexico children and youth in Doña Ana County.