Alaí Reyes-Santos
Biography
At University of Oregon, Dr. Alaí Reyes-Santos serves as a Professor of Practice at U of Oregon's School of Law; Director of the Mellon Foundation-funded (4.5 million) PNW Just Futures Institute for Climate and Racial Justice; and Director of the Water Equity Fund (1.5 million funded by an Oregon state budget allocation) at JFI/Climate Solutions Center. An award-winning teacher, her Ted-talk “Building Intercultural Communities” is used in higher ed and popular education to initiate guidelines for dialogue across difference.
She is also the founder of ACC, a BIPOC-led consulting firm that facilitates organizational transformations and community engagement in the non-profit sector, government, higher ed, arts and cultural initiatives, emergency preparedness and response, and social and environmental justice organizations. ACC is currently a named partner in the Environmental Justice Technical Assistance Center funded by the Environmental Protection Agency to serve Region 10.
Dr. Reyes-Santos currently serves in Oregon's Racial Justice Council's Environmental Equity Committee providing recommendations to the Office of the Governor.
The community-action research project she co-founded and co-led for four years as a member of Oregon Water Futures Collaborative contributes to the articulation of a water justice agenda in the state and nationwide. After supporting a 530 million dollars water package, OWF moved to its second outreach phase in 2022 and completed a Water Justice Policy Framework; the framework informed the Drought Package passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2023, and continues to shape a cutting-edge Water Justice Leadership Institute led by Verde. The innovative Water Justice Network emerging from within OWF's advocacy centers people of color, women, and queer leadership in the water sector.
The digital humanities site The Healers Project: Decolonizing Knowledge Within AfroIndigenous traditions-co-authored by Dr. Reyes-Santos with Dr. Ana-Maurine Lara and U of Oregon Libraries-showcases interviews with healers and traditional ecological knowledge keepers, ethnobotanical guides, multimedia essays, and curriculum and bibliographical resources.
https://www.alaireyessantos.com/
Education
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego, Literature, 2007
M.A. University of California, San Diego, Spanish, 2004
B.A. University of Puerto Rico, Comparative Literature, magna cum laude, 2001
Publications
Blogs, Op-Eds, Interviews, see https://www.alaireyessantos.com/media
Digital and other Public-Facing Projects, see https://www.alaireyessantos.com/research
Publications, see https://www.alaireyessantos.com/selected-essays
“Cuando Yemayá dejó a Ogún, o imaginando lo inimaginable.” Centro Journal. (Winter 2024)
Healers: Afro-Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Medicinal Knowledge. https://healers.uoregon.edu/ (Aug 2024)
Sanadores: Descolonizando el conocimiento desde las tradiciones afro-indígenas. https://healers.uoregon.edu/inicio (August 2024)
“Radical Boricuir Ecologies.” Co-authored. Centro Journal 35.1 (2023): 153-177.
“Afro-Indigenous Women Healers in the Caribbean and its Diasporas: A Decolonial
Digital Humanities Project.” Co-authored. Digital Humanities Quarterly. 16.3 (2022).
Water Justice Policy Framework. Co-authored. www.oregonwaterfutures.org. (Dec. 2022)
“How Clean Is Your Water? An Oregon Initiative Brings Water Testing to the People.” Co-authored. Impact: American Water Resources Association Journal. July/August 2022. https://online.flippingbook.com/view/788732778/
Conocimientos Ancestrales: Descolonizando el conocimiento desde las tradiciones afro-indígenas. (with Ana-Maurine Lara) Editorial Búho, 2021.
Oregon Water Futures Project Report: 2020-2021 Community Engagement. Co-authored. https://www.oregonwaterfutures.org/report-20-21
City of Eugene Climate Action Plan 2.0: Equity Panel Case Study. Co-Authored. 2019. https://www.alaireyessantos.com/_files/ugd/437def_afd2762c11944ab7b6d06d96205dfeee.pdf
"Mangú y Mofongo: Intra-Latinx Subjectivities in Dominican-Puerto Rican Families." Co-author Ana-Maurine Lara. Centro Journal, 2018.
“On Pan-Antillean Politics: Betances and Luperón Speak to the Present.” Callaloo 36.1 (2013): 142–157.
Our Caribbean Kin: Race and Nation in the Neoliberal Antilles. Rutgers University Press, 2015.
"Afro-descendencia y pan-americanismo en el pensamiento antillanista del siglo diecinueve." Estudios Sociales XLI.154 (May 2013): 29-51.
“Capital neoliberal, raza, migración: relaciones domínico-haitianas y domínico-puertorriqueñas.” Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales 24.1 (February 2008): 13-34.
"Notas sobre identidades étnicas y raciales dominicanas." Co-author Ramona Hernandez. Afrodescendendientes en México y Nuestra América. Ed. Jesús María Serna e Israel Ugalde Quintana. Centro de Investigaciones sobre América Latina y el Caribe, UNAM: 2019.
“Anowa and Tituba, Witch or Feminist?: A Comparative Study of Two Postcolonial Characters.” African Diasporas: Ancestors, Migrations and Boundaries. Eds. Robert Cancel and Winifred Woodhull. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2008. African Literature Association Annual Series Vol. 14: 115-123.
Honors and Awards
2023
Selected Planning Committee Member, “Integrating the Human Sciences to Scale Societal Responses to Environmental Change," National Academies of Sciences
2022
Racial Equity and Sustainability Collaborations Award, Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education
Featured by Color of Water: Top Directory of BIPOC Water Experts
Excellence in Teaching, Sustainability Awards, U of Oregon
Honorable Mention, Best Public Project, Latin American Studies Association/ Archives, Libraries and Digital Scholarship Section
2020
Woman of Recognition, NAACP Eugene-Springfield Chapter, Oregon
2016
Distinguished Woman of Achievement, Black Women of Achievement, U of Oregon
2015
Ersted Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Oregon