Moe Gámez

Moe Gámez is a PhD candidate in English with a graduate certificate in Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic studies at the University of Oregon. Their dissertation, Queer and Trans Latinx Ecologies: Environmental Affect and Embodiment Beyond Survival, considers queer and trans Latinx contributions to ecological thought, environmental aesthetics, and complex relationships to land.

Frequently accompanied by

Oso

Gabriela E. Nuñez

Gabriela Enriqueta Nuñez is Associate Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies and Associate Dean for Student Relations in the college of Humanities and Social Sciences at California State University, Fullerton. Her work focuses on curriculum development, student experiential initiatives, and the role of equity and the humanities in higher education. As a first-generation university student and educator, she is committed to helping students and junior faculty better understand and navigate academic institutions. 

Gabriela’s work brings together storytelling, scholarship and service to build more inclusive futures within and beyond the university. She previously served as grant writer and director of the Latinx Lab for Storytelling and Social Justice, a Mellon Foundation supported initiative at CSUF that centers Latinx voices and community-based narratives. Gabriela is coediter of the special issue on Latinx outdoor recreation in Diálogo: an Interdisciplinary Studies Journal. Her research also appears in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Latino Studies Journal, Altermundos: Latin@ Speculative Literature, Film, and Popular Culture, edited by Cathryn Josefina Merla-Watson and B.V. Olguín (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center P, 2017), and Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial, edited by Sarah D. Wald, David J. Vázquez, Priscilla Solís Ybarra, and Sarah Jaquette Ray (Temple, 2019).

Frequently accompanied by

María Guadalupe Nuñez y Orozco

(aka “Lupita”)

David J. Vázquez

David J. Vázquez is Professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies and Program Director of Latina/o/x Studies at American University in Washington, DC. He is also the current President of the Latina/x/o Studies Association. Vázquez is the author of Decolonial Environmentalisms: Climate Justice and Speculative Futurity in Latinx Cultural Production (Texas, 2025) and Triangulations: Narrative Strategies for Navigating Latino Identity (Minnesota, 2011). He is also co-editor of Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial (Temple, 2019), which won the 2022 MLA Prize for an Edited Volume. His current projects include a new monograph, tentatively titled “Days of Futures Past: Latinx Science Fiction and Speculative Futurity,” a co-edited volume on “Latinx Outdoor Recreation,” a special theme of the journal Diálogo, and a recent Special Provocation of ASAP/J.

Frequently accompanied by

Zero

Sarah D. Wald

Sarah D. Wald (she/her) is Professor of Environmental Studies and English at the University of Oregon. She co-edited Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial, winner of the Modern Language Association Prize for an Edited Collection, and authored The Nature of California: Race, Citizenship, and Farming since the Dustbowl.  She directs the Environmental Justice Storytelling Lab at UO to address and amplify environmental justice, racial justice, and Tribal sovereignty on public lands and outdoor recreation in collaboration with Pacific Northwest public lands advocacy organizations. This work includes the Northwest Forest Plan Just Futures Collaborative and Mt. Hood Stories. Her recent publications appear in Latino Studies, American Quarterly, Nature Unfurled: Asian American Environmental Histories (U of Washington P, 2024), and a coedited special issue on Latinx outdoor recreation in Diálogo.

Frequently accompanied by

Thumper

TJ (Thumper, Jr.)

Priscilla Solis Ybarra

Priscilla Solis Ybarra is a writer and scholar, and she holds the titles of Professor and Mellichamp Chair in Racial Environmental Justice in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her book Writing the Goodlife: Mexican American Literature and the Environment was chosen for the 2017 Thomas J. Lyon Award in Western American Literary and Cultural Studies. She is co-editor of Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial, which was awarded the 2022 Modern Language Association Prize for an Edited Collection. Her current project, Out(side) Brown Queer, is about a transformational season on the western edge of North America when she confronted her interior emotional geography and the intersections of brown identity, queer liberation, Black abolition, and Indigenous land rematriation. Her best days include family and friends, interesting language, healthy cuisine, birds, water, wandering, and dogs.

Although Priscilla does not currently reside with a more-than-human companion, she often hangs with her friends’ dog and cat companions while her friends travel. She also spends a lot of time with birds. This photo is of a Prothonatory Warbler at the Clear Creek Natural Heritage Area in Denton, Texas.