Featured Presenters
Nuria Ciofalo, PhD, is Core Faculty in the Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Eco- Psychologies specialization at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Born in Mexico, she gained her B.A. and first M.A. in Clinical and Social Psychology at the University of Munich, Germany where she specialized in psychoanalytic theories. Her M.A. in Urban and Regional Planning and Ph.D. in Community Psychology at the University of Hawaii immersed her in the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement and healing practices. She has worked with Indigenous communities in Hawaii, Northern, Central, and Southern Mexico for more than 40 years. She teaches Indigenous psychologies centering Indigenous cosmologies, epistemologies, axiologies, and healing praxes in academic curricula applying participatory action research in partnership with communities. She has published in the areas of participatory youth action research, program evaluation, and decolonial, depth community and Indigenous psychologies. Her recent book, Indigenous Psychologies in an Era of Decolonization (2019), was written in partnership with Maya Lacandon youths and community leaders of the Lacandon Rainforest in Chiapas, Mexico
Dr. Blanca Ortiz-Torres has a Ph.D. in Community Psychology from New York University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Puerto Rico. She has held several research and teaching positions in Puerto Rico and New York. For twenty-five years she was a faculty member in the Psychology Department and the Institute for Psychological Research at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. Between 2012 al 2014 she was the Dean of the College of Social Sciences and prior to that an Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies. She retired from the University of Puerto Rico in 2019. Her research interests include decoloniality, gender, sexuality, community empowerment, the development of structural interventions to prevent HIV in various groups, public policy, and cuban migration. She also does research in areas such as community activation, citizen participation and development of community capital. She has offered courses as invited professor in Cuba, Uruguay, México, Ecuador, United States, Dominican Republic, and Perú.