I am an architect, a teacher, and a historian of objects, buildings, and landscapes. My work studies how spatial practices of power and resistance shape the modernity and coloniality of the Americas. I am co-founder of several collectives laboring to broaden the reach of architectural history, including the Feminist Art and Architecture Collaborative (where I was active 2013–2020), Detroit Resists, Nuestro Norte es el Sur, and the Settler Colonial City Project. I recently published my first two books, Modernity for the Masses: Antonio Bonet’s Dreams for Buenos Aires (UT Press, 2021) and Una Ruina al Revés (ARQ, 2021). Follow the links for more about my texts, actions, collaborations, and talks. My pronouns are she/ella.
I am Associate Professor of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (July 2022–present). There, I’m part of the Associated Faculty Committee of the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative. I was the Spring 2024 Tsao Family Harvard GSD Affiliated Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. My work at Harvard has been supported by the Racial Equity and Anti-Racism Fund, the HMUI, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Office of the Provost, and the Radcliffe Institute through a Junior Faculty Research Colloquia.
I was previously Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan (2015–2022) where I held positions at the History of Art and Romance Languages and Literatures departments, and a dry appointment at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. I was affiliated with the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Also at UMich, I was the Charles P. Brauer Faculty Fellow at the Institute for the Humanities (2020–21) and co-director of the Decolonizing Pedagogies Workshop (2017–2021).
I hold a PhD in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture from MIT, an M.Des.S. with distinction from the Harvard GSD, an M.Arch. from Georgia Tech, and an architecture and urbanism diploma from the Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil.
As I work and live on occupied territories I recognize Indigenous sovereignty, the ongoing effects of colonization and colonial state violence, and the global struggle for self-determination of Indigenous communities and of all communities that have been dispossessed from the land or forced to leave the land they care for. I learn from the land and from all species in kinship with it..