Biography

Estefanía Castañeda Pérez an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California (USC). Prior to joining USC, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Penn Migration Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her Ph.D. and Master’s from the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in political science and interdisciplinary studies from San Diego State University.

Estefanía is an interdisciplinary scholar at the intersection of law, sociology and political science. Her research investigates how Latinx communities experience the law through policing and surveillance systems, and the consequences of these experiences on their racialization, well-being, and legal consciousness. In particular, she focuses on the perspectives of transborder commuters, who are U.S. citizens and non-citizens that reside in Mexican border cities but regularly cross the border to the U.S. for work, education, or commerce.

Estefanía's educational aspirations have been informed by her experience commuting daily from Tijuana to San Diego as a first-generation, transborder student for more than a decade. As a daughter of a Mexican immigrant, she has witnessed, documented, and experienced the consequences of state violence embedded in immigration and border enforcement. Her experiential and academic expertise serve as her guiding compass to advocate for transborder and transnational peacemaking.

Estefanía's research is supported by numerous associations such as the American Political Science Association, the National Science Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. Her work has been published in Politics, Groups, and Identities, International Migration Review, and Uprooted! The Wellbeing and Social Integration of Migrant Children and Youth (forthcoming in Fall 2025). She has also published public-facing articles and analyses for NACLA, the NYU Latinx Project Intervenxions Blog, and Remezcla. She has provided expert commentary on the México-U.S. border and transborder life to numerous national and local media, including Telemundo 20, the Los Angeles Times, Refinery29, KJZZ Phoenix, among others.

Estefanía has been active in advocating for migrant and transborder communities by providing expert training on the transborder experience at local and national academic and government agencies. She also developed a Community Action Project aimed at empowering Transfronteriza women through RISE San Diego’s Urban Leadership Fellowship.