Arlene Torres is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In January of 2004 she was appointed Director of the Latina and Latino Studies Program at UIUC. As a cultural anthropologist who focuses on the study of race and ethnicity, Torres has conducted research in the Anglophone and Hispanic Caribbean and in the U.S. Her most recent work focuses on the racialization of ethnic groups in museum settings. The work is titled, “Collecting Puerto Ricans” in Kevin Yelvington (ed.) Afro-Atlantic Dialogues: Anthropology in the Diaspora. Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press (2004). Other published works include Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean. Volumes I & II. Edited with Norman E. Whitten Jr. (eds.) Bloomington: Indiana University Press (1998). As a public intellectual, Torres serves as a member of the Advisory Board and consultant to a national project on race, “Understanding Race and Human Variation: A Public Education Program” supported American Anthropological Association and the Ford Foundation. She also serves on the project Advisory Board of “Underrepresented Minorities in the Academy: Understanding the Career Attainment Process. Summer Research Opportunities Program Research Project” funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

For more information on Arlene Torres, click here.