Hot off the Press 

• Lisa Broidy and colleagues from Australia published an article titled "Health Problems and Adversities Experienced by Incarcerated Mothers: Use of a Life Events Calendar" in the journal Women’s Health. https://doi.org/10.1177/17455057261460287 
• Sharon Erickson Nepstad published an article, “The Social Allure of Enemies: Moral Power and Illusions in Public Reactions to Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem.” Journal of Political Power, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2026.2695746
• Kayla Martensen co-authored a paper "Inclusive Learning & Leadership: Building Diverse Mentorship Ecosystems" The Chronicle of Mentoring & Coaching which was just accepted for presentation, for the 19th Annual Mentoring Conference put on by The Mentoring Institute here at UNM.
• Bianca Ruiz-Negrón published an article titled "(Re)Tracing borders: A critical discourse analysis of the research on Latinx mental health impacts of U.S. immigration enforcement" in American Journal of Community Psychology (https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.70099). This article was based off her MA thesis.
• Susana Echeverri Herrera published an article “Border Disablement: How Embodied Borders Disable Latina Immigrants with Breast Cancer," in Social Problems https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spag027. This article was based off her MA thesis.
• Susana Echeverri Herrera, Bianca Ruiz Negrón, Alexandra Lemus, Jessica Goodkind and others coauthored an article in the American Journal of Community Psychology. Here's the citation, check it out:  Echeverri Herrera, S., Ruiz Negrón, B., Lemus, A., Ramos, D., Ramírez, J., Medina, D., Hess, J. M., & Goodkind, J. R. (2026). “Rethinking Border Violence: A Socio-Structural Analysis of Latinx Immigrants’ Perceptions of and Strategies for Safety, Security, and Well-Being.” American Journal of Community Psychology, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.70101

Kudos and Awards

• Nancy López and her collaborators/research team have recently won numerous awards and recognitions:
  • Julian Samora Distinguished Career Award, Latina/o Section American Sociological Association, New York, NY.
  • Dorothy E. Smith Scholar Activism Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems for research that compels a re-thinking of statistical categories and the conflation of race and ethnicity, as well moving beyond self-identification, which draws attention to how government statistical categories shape the world in particular ways and de facto exclude certain realities from consideration, New York, NY. 
  • Honorable mention for the Katherine K. Wallman Award for impact on local/national statistics through working beyond academia to develop new approaches and help shape national policy decisions, American Statistical Association/Joint Statistical Meetings in Boston, MA. Their contributions will be noted in the the AmStat News article forthcoming.
• Ranita Ray's Slow Violence won a 2026 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award.
• Bianca Ruiz-Negrón is a 2026-2027 UNM Center for Regional Studies Graduate Student Fellow
• Susana Echeverri Herrera is an  American Association of University Women (AAUW) 2026–2027 American Dissertation Fellow.
• Suyent Rodriguez Candeaux received the 2026 Devon T. Wade Student Paper Award from the Association of Black Sociologists for her article, “’We Are All Family’: Black Diasporic Solidarity Among Black Cuban Immigrants” (published in Sociology Compass).

Show Me the Money 

• Libby Vigil received a UNM Center for Regional Studies Graduate Student Fellowship for the 2026-2027 school year. 
• Assata Zerai is co-PI on a National Science Foundation award of nearly $3 million to launch the “S-STEM Hub: Translating Undergraduate Success into Graduate Opportunity”. Led by the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities (HSRU) and U. Texas at El Paso in collaboration with the UNM, the U. of Illinois Chicago, and the U. of California, Santa Barbara, the 5-year initiative will establish a national collaborative research hub focused on understanding how institutional practices and undergraduate experiences strengthen graduate STEM pathways for low-income students.
• Jian Meng was awarded the Richard Sutch Travel Grant for the 51st Meeting of the Social Science History Association and also received the Student Research Grant (SRG) from the GPSA to attend the ASA annual meeting.

Taking the Show on the Road 

• Kayla Martensen and Libby Vigil presented their working paper, “The Contention between Abolition as a Political Project and Abolition as Pedagogy” at the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) Annual Meeting in New York. 
• Kayla also spoke on a panel "Teaching hope, joy, and justice: Reclamation of lifeworlds" at SSSP.
• Ranita Ray's book, Slow Violence, was featured in the following podcasts for those interested in listening: New Books Network Podcast, Bridging the Bones Podcast, The Research to Practice Gap Podcast,  Cultural Studies Podcast.

Beyond the Ivory Tower 

• Ranita Ray wrote two pieces for public facing outlets. Ray, Ranita. “In Times of Extreme Political Polarization, Here’s How Teachers Can Support the Most Vulnerable Students.” TEACHmag. June 9th and "Teaching in and against the state.” Red Pepper. April 10th. 

The Alumni Beat

• Graduate student alumna Alisa Rogers (Ph.D. 2025) is working as a Senior Program Manager for Center for Healthcare Equity in Kidney Disease at UNM Health Sciences.
• Angeles "Rubi" Castorena - Sociology Undergrad Alum, Mellon Scholar, Institute for the Study of "Race" & Social Justice undergraduate intern (currently Sociology doctoral student at UCI) - was recently awarded a NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship Spencer Dissertation award for her research on how high school ethnic studies teachers in California are navigating the current sociopolitical climate and creating spaces for critical inquiry and praxis for student success. https://naeducation.org/awardee/angeles-rubi-castorena/. 

In Other News

• Ranita will join ASA's Nominations Committee and Context Magazine editorial Board. 
• As a member of the SKAT Communication Committee, Jian Meng interviewed Prof. Yan Long about her new book Authoritarian Absorption: The Transnational Remaking of Epidemic Politics in China. https://asaskat.com/2026/05/07/skat-new-books-qa-with-yan-long-author-of-authoritarian-absorption/
• Graduate student Davyd Setter is working as a full-time faculty member in the Sociology Department at Central New Mexico Community College (CNM).