Jillian Báez is an associate professor of Africana and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies at Hunter College. She is also an affiliated faculty member at the CUNY Mexican Studies Institute and the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the CUNY Graduate Center. She earned her doctorate at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her bachelor’s degree at Hunter College with a double major in Black and Puerto Rican studies and media studies.
Trained as a media studies and cultural studies scholar, her research expertise lies in Latinx media and popular culture, transnational feminisms, and issues of belonging and citizenship. She is the author of In Search of Belonging: Latinas, Media and Citizenship (University of Illinois Press, 2018). Dr. Báez’s research has also been in published in numerous peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Chicana/Latina Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication and Communication, Culture & Critique) and anthologies. Her research has been funded by the Ford Foundation, Tinker Foundation and Social Science Research Council among other institutions.
Prior to her appointment at Hunter College, Dr. Báez was a faculty member at the University of Michigan, Williams College and the College of Staten Island-CUNY.