Chris Zepeda-Millán, Postdoctoral Scholar
Department of Political Science
& Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

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Born and raised in the East Los Angeles barrio of Boyle Heights, in 2011 Chris Zepeda-Millán became the first Chicano/Mexican-American to receive a Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Cornell University. His research interests include Immigration, Social Movements, Labor, the Effects of Protests on Public Opinion, and Race & Ethnic Politics. Chris’s dissertation, Dignity’s Revolt: Threat, Identity, and Immigrant Mass Mobilization, analyzes the historic 2006 nationwide immigrant rights protest-wave and its effects on the national electorate and policy-making process. His research examines large-scale immigrant collective action in different geographic (on the West Coast, East Coast, and U.S. South) and demographic (among different racial and ethnic groups) settings. Chris has been actively involved in various local, national, and transnational social movements. He has received several grants and fellowships including a LaFeber Research Grant, a Cornell Provost Fellowship, Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, and a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. Chris is currently a Provost's Career Enhancement Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Political Science and Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, as well as a postdoctoral affiliate of the Center for the Study of Social Movements at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Zepeda-Millan has been interviewed on issues related to immigration, social movements, and Latino politics by several local, national, and international news outlets including: Vietnamese-language news, Canadian television, La Opinion (the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the U.S.), Univision (the largest Spanish-language television network in the U.S.), Colorlines, and several Pacifica and other local radio stations in the West Coast, Midwest, and Southern United States. Chris has also written for The Huffington Post and The Progressive.