2011 - 2012 Puentes Consortium Scholars

Deborah Lines Andersen is associate professor of Information Studies and Informatics at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Her research areas are in library policy and management, information policy, and government information management. She teaches statistics at the master's level as well as research design in the informatics PhD program at the University. A 2010-2011 Fulbright Scholar, she resided in Cholula, Mexico as a visiting researcher at Universidad de las Americas, Puebla, and in Montreal, Canada as a visiting researcher at CEFRIO.

Fernando Rodriguez is a professor of communication at the Universidad de las Américas-Puebla (UDLAP) in Mexico. He’s a candidate to the Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His research is focused on media effects on social perceptions and risk communication. His dissertation deals with an analysis of the contribution of television viewing to the development of a sense of control during adolescence.

Dr. Aguilar holds a master's and a doctorate in economics from The London School of Economics and Political Science, and is a professor in the Economics Department at Tecnológico de Monterrey. He is member of Mexico's National Research System. He has experience in the public sector, serving in the ministries of agriculture and water resources, of budgeting and planning, and the Mexico City government. He coordinates Tecnologico de Monterrey's research chair on the economics of México's northern border. He has won three times the Monterrey Tech Award for Excellence in Teaching and Research.

Scott Whiteford is Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona. He has been the Director of Latin American Studies and Professor of Anthropology at Michigan State University 1974-2005 and Director of Center for Latin American Studies –University of Arizona 2005-2010. His research interest include: issues of neo-liberal development, migration, violence and unequal power and political ecology of water. His publications include the following books: The Impacts of NAFTA on Small Farmers in Mexico; Co-edited with Juan Rivera and Manuel Chávez Márquez.

José-Carlos Lozano received his M.A. in Media Studies from Leicester University, England, and his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Texas at Austin. He is Director of the Center for Communication Research and ITESM Chair in Media and Communication at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico. A Fellow of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and of the National System of Researchers (Level 3), he is also the author of numerous chapters and journal articles in the areas of cultural and media studies, political and international communication.

Luis Felipe Luna-Reyes is a Professor of Business at the Universidad de las Américas-Puebla in México, and currently a Fulbright Scholar at the Center for Technology in Government at Albany, NY. He holds a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University at Albany. He is a member of the Mexican National Research System. His research focuses on electronic government and on modeling collaboration processes in the development of information technologies across functional and organizational boundaries.

Mark P. Jones is the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy's Fellow in Political Science, and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University. His research focuses on the effect of electoral laws and other political institutions on governance, representation and voting, with particular focus on Latin America and the United States.

Dr. Qilin Li is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University. Dr. Li received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Environmental Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her B.E. degree in Environmental Engineering from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. She received her post-doctoral training at Yale University and was on the faculty of Oregon State University before joining Rice University. Dr.

Sharon B. Megdal is Director of The University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) and C.W. and Modene Neely Endowed Professor. She is Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Science. She serves as Co-Director of The University of Arizona Water, Environmental and Energy Solutions Program, which is funded by the Technology Research Initiative Fund (TRIF) and holds the title Distinguished Outreach Professor.