Visiting Faculty Fellows
Eddie Bonilla
Professor Bonilla’s research examines the ideologies and activism of communists of color from
the 1960s to the present. He explores how activists of different racial and ethnic backgrounds
utilized the theories around Marxism for organizing laborers, students, and communities in their
fights against global imperialism, capitalism, sexism, and racism. He explores the polemical
writings and practical activism of a multiracial Communist Party known as the League
of Revolutionary Struggle in areas such as labor, student activism, and electoral politics.
Professor Bonilla has published work on the interconnections of social movements and policing
by seeing how communists were politically persecuted at the hands of policing agencies against
communists during the global Cold War. He is currently revising his dissertation to a
book manuscript tentatively titled Homegrown Communists in the Age of Reagan: Multi-Racial
Politics and Socialist Revolution that sits at the intersection of Latinx, African American, and
Asian American social movement histories.
Devin Heyward
Devin is an Associate Professor in the department of Sociology, Urban Studies, and
Anthropology, the Faculty Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice, and the Director
of the Gender and Sexuality Studies program at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City, NJ. She is
a graduate of the Critical Social-Personality Psychology doctoral program at The Graduate
Center of the City University of New York. Dr. Heyward has taught a number of interdisciplinary
courses including Global Feminism, Women in a Changing Urban World, Urban Anthropology,
and the Sociology of Intimacy.
Her research focuses on racial identity development over the lifespan and how it is influenced
by chosen experiences, such as course enrollment and genetic ancestry testing. Dr. Heyward’s
most recent project uses a Youth Participatory Action Research (Y-PAR) framework to develop a
well-being survey and toolkit for and by Black youth and young adults. She currently serves as
the Vice Chair for the Bronx Community Research Review Board (BxCRRB), an organization
dedicated to the ethical inclusion of Bronx residents in medical and social research throughout
the borough.
Stephanie Huezo-Jefferson
I am an historian of twentieth and twenty-first century Latin American and Latinx History. My
research interest focuses on community organizing, Central American revolutions, and
immigrant activism. I am currently working on a manuscript that examines how Salvadoran
community organizers in both El Salvador and the diaspora have used popular education to
create spaces of belonging when state systems and narratives have neglected to do so. Drawing
on more than thirty oral histories and archival resources, I demonstrate how Salvadorans used
popular education as a tool for resistance against state sanctioned violence that cut across
national boundaries. The manuscript ultimately demonstrates how Salvadorans understood and
rearticulated a repertoire of organizing tools from their homeland, based on religious and
revolutionary values, to challenge hegemonic, racist, and xenophobic systemic structures that
impede social justice. My work has been supported in part by Indiana University’s History
Department, the University Graduate School at Indiana University, the American Historical
Association, and the Conference of Latin American History. I have also received various
fellowships and grants including the Ford Dissertation Fellowship (declined), the Consortium for
Faculty Diversity Fellowship, and the Andres Torres Paper Series Award.
Tsedale Melaku
Dr. Tsedale M. Melaku is a Sociologist, Assistant Professor of Management at the Zicklin School
of Business, Baruch College (CUNY), and Author of You Don’t Look Like a Lawyer: Black Women
and Systemic Gendered Racism (2019). You Don’t Look Like a Lawyer reflects the emphasis of
her scholarly interests in race, gender, class, workplace inequities, systemic racism,
intersectionality, organizations and diversity. She earned a Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Sociology from
The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and a B.A. in Sociology and Africana Studies
from New York University. Her focus is on how race and gender affect advancement in traditionally white institutional
spaces, and how white racial framing and systemic gendered racism play a critical role in the
experiences of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), and more specifically, BIPOC women
in organizations