Erika Lee Vallejo

Hometown: Rio Grande City, Texas 

CLS Affiliation: CLS Graduate Certificate Student 

Current Status: PhD Student

Graduation Year: May 2024

Major: Political Science

 

Celebrating Erika: 

Erika was recently co-featured in the Monkey Cage on the Washington Post with the help of her advisor. She is extremely grateful to be a part of this project, which has inspired her own work. You can read Erika’s co-authored piece entitled “State legislatures likely to have people of color next year” by clicking on this link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/23/state-legislatures-will-likely-have-more-women-people-color-next-year/. Additionally, Erika was selected to join the 2020-2021 APSA Minority Fellows Program—a competitive fellowship aimed to increase the number of minority scholars in the discipline, particularly political science PhD programs. 

What advice/tips/consejos would you give students in terms of navigating school? 

Take it one day at a time. It's okay to take it step-by-step, especially when school seems the most overwhelming. Also, please remember you are not alone. Whether it's your family, amigo(a)s, peers, or your professors, you have people who believe in you. Somos familia.

What are your professional/career aspirations?

My primary career aspiration is to be a professor of Political Science, where I would like to teach about class, race, ethnicity, gender, labor, and immigration. Additionally, I hope that my future scholarly work will inspire working-class folks to run for political office. I want my work to be applicable and useful to the general public. 

What (or who) inspires you? 

I'm fortunate to be inspired by my advisor, Dr. Eric Gonzalez-Juenke and my amazing mentor, Dr. Nazita Lajevardi. Both of these faculty have been at my side during my ups and downs through graduate school, and I am extremely grateful. I'm also inspired by my mother, who is one of the primary motivations for my research and the reason I continue to strive to do my best in academia. 

Read more about Erika and research by clicking on the following link: https://polisci.msu.edu/people/directory/vallejo-erika.html 

You can also follow Erika and her work on Twitter by using the following handle: @ErikaaVallejo