Lynn Stephen is a distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. She joined CSWS as the Women in the Northwest Initiative Director starting in fall 2006 and now also serves as Associate Director for Program Development.. Her research has centered on the intersection of culture and politics. Born in Chicago, Illinois she has a particular interest in the ways that political identities articulate with ethnicity, gender, class, and nationalism in relation to local, regional, and national histories, cultural politics, and systems of governance in Latin America. During the past eight years she has added the dimension of migration to her research. Her newest book is titled Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon (March, 2007, Duke University Press). Her three most recent books are Zapotec Women: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Globalized Oaxaca (2005), Zapata Lives!: Histories and Cultural Politics in Southern Mexico (2002) and Perspectives on Las Américas: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation (2003), co-edited with Matt Gutmann, Felix Matos Rodríguez, and Pat Zavella. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for Humanities, The Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University and research grants from the National Science Foundation, The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the Inter-American Foundation. She has a strong commitment to collaborative research and in projects that produce findings that are accessible to the wider public. She has most recently collaborated with Pineros y Campesinos del Nordoeste (PCUN), CAUSA ( Oregon immigrant rights coalition), Rural Organizing Project, Juventud FACETA, and twelve weaving cooperatives from Teotitlán del Valle in her work. Her most recent research focuses on identity formation and the political and civic participation among Mexican immigrant youth.

Gabriela Martínez is an international award-winning documentary filmmaker who has produced, directed or edited more than ten ethnographic and social documentaries, including Ñakaj, Textiles in the Southern Andes, Mamacoca, and Qoyllur Rit’i: A Woman’s Journey. Her experience as a documentary maker and researcher gives Martínez a unique and broad approach for the teaching and sharing of theoretical knowledge as well as hands-on production skills. Gabriela's research interest is in: media ownership, media culture, media trans-nationalism and globalization are some of the topics at the core of Martinez’s research. The global circulation of technologies and cultural products and the economic, social, cultural, and political impact in Third World countries, especially Latin America, are included in her research interests. Recent publications include Latin American Telecommunications: Telefónica's Conquest and Cinema Law in Latin America: Brazil, Peru, and Colombia.

Alina Padilla-Miller is a doctoral student in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.  During her Master's program, at the University of Washington, Alina conducted a case study on the communication process of the Chilean arpilleras that were created during the Pinochet regime.  Upon completion of the case study, Alina developed and executed a website to house the study and to continue the socially compelling and politically significant arpilleras messages.  Through this website,  Alina was contacted by various people connected to Chile, studying the culture, regime and/or the arpilleras.  The site proved to be an important online resource for many people.  Due to the similar content and mission of the arpillera website, Alina comes to the Making Rights a Reality project as web designer and web master.

Magali Morales has a dual career as a translator and a trauma-focused psychotherapist.  As a translator she specializes in education, the humanities, and the nonprofit sector, and she loves to collaborate with social justice projects.  As a psychotherapist she uses leading-edge methods to assist survivors of interpersonal violence in their emotional, physical and spiritual healing.

Jesse Nichols is an undergraduate student soon to graduate from the University of Oregon with degrees in International Studies and Spanish.  His college career has led him back and forth to Latin America on various occasions.  In 2005, he completed the LEAPYear program through the New College of California with which he spent two terms abroad, in Xela, Guatemala and on a ranch in rural Patagonia, Argentina.  Intrigued by Social Movements and the many cultures of the Latin American landscape, he spent the summer of 2006 in Mexico studying Spanish, philosophy and history with the Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Education System of the Highlands of Chiapas.  In 2007, he returned to Mexico to volunteer with Mal de Ojo Communications, a nonprofit that makes documentary movies about the APPO movement and to study at the University of Querétaro.  In Portland and Eugene, he has been involved with nonprofit groups that support and collaborate with the Latin American Immigrant community including VOZ Day Laborer Rights Organization, PCASC (Portland Central American Solidarity Committee), Siempre Amigos and ELAW.  After graduating from the U of O, he will be volunteering with nonprofits in Latin America and in the Northwest U.S. and studying video-journalism and translation.

Josué Gómez is a Master’s Student of Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. His B.A. is from Universidad de las Americas, Puebla, where he graduated with a major in archaeology. Josué has conducted research in the south Pacific coast of Mexico and has a close relationship with the people of Oaxaca. He has worked in Oaxaca, has family there, and intends to conduct his doctoral level research in the area. His research interests include the social dimension of archaeology and the relationship between contemporary indigenous peoples and their archaeological past.