Profiles of 2024-2025 CSWR Fellows
Judy Alderete Garcia
Judy Alderete Garcia is a 2025 fellow in the Center for Southwest Research working to digitize oral interviews from the Anselmo Arellano Collection. Judy obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Mexico in 2011 with a double major in Spanish and Women’s Studies and a minor in Chicano Studies. She is currently working on a master's degree in Southwest Studies in the Spanish department. Judy is an award-winning author from Albuquerque’s South Valley. She is the editor and publisher of Memories of Torreon, New Mexico and Stories from the Manzano Mountains and author of Abstracts of a South Valley Nuevomexicana and Journey Through New Mexico. Judy writes to preserve the history, culture, language, identity and stories of the Nuevomexicano people and to educate others who do not know who we are. Judy's plans for after graduation is to spend a year abroad teaching English and to continue writing.
Maxwell Bush
Maxwell Bush is an M.A. student in the Department of History at the University of New Mexico, where he is finishing his degree in History with a Museum Studies minor. Max holds a B.A from UNM, and during his Undergraduate studies he focused on medieval Eastern Europe and the Kievan Rus in particular. During this time he became very interested in the telling of history through art and objects, and is now pursuing a career in the museum field. Currently, Max is the University Archives Fellow at the Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections.
Maria Feliza Monta- Jameson
Maria Feliza Monta- Jameson is an Educational Linguistics PhD candidate in the LLSS Department at UNM College of Education and Human Sciences. Former recipient of the 2016-2018 Center for Regional Studies Post Custodial Spanish American Fellow, she managed the Fideicomiso FAPECFT in its early stages by translating original metadata from Spanish into English and making this collection accessible via New Mexico Digital Collections. In the A.Y. 2022-2023, she joined Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communication (DISC) at UNM Libraries as a G.A. to digitized and disseminate LaDonna Harris Digital Collection. At present she is working on her dissertation that focuses on language education policy, investigating how public-school teachers in Ecuador characterize education reform in the field of foreign/second language teaching. An avid researcher of language as social action and identity shaper, she also collaborates as an Associate Paleographer and Archive Researcher with the Native Bound Unbound Digital Archive of Indigenous Slavery, a Mellon Foundation sponsored Project that supports the creation of an open-source central repository centered on the life of enslaved Indigenous Americans. She cherishes all her experiences and skills with the historical archives as assets for her prospective academic career.
Josh Heckman-Archibeque
Josh Heckman-Archibeque is a Ph.D. candidate in American studies and a fellow at the Center for Southwest Research. Josh’s research focuses on the production and reproduction of working-class social relations in New Mexico. Josh was a TA/GA for four years in American Studies. They are currently teaching at CNM and was a substitute teacher with APS working at various schools like Rio Grande Highschool, Atrisco Heritage Academy, and Jimmy Carter Middle school. Josh is an experienced community activist and union organizer who has worked with organizations such as MEChA de UNM and The Red Nation. They have organized community self-defense classes through Shifting Sands Dojo for People of Color, Working folks, and the LGBTQ+ Community. Josh is a teacher, worker, martial artist, and community member.
Travis Torres Thompson
Travis Torres Thompson was raised in Taos, New Mexico and is a graduate student in the Department of Chicana/o Studies and a Distinctive Native American Collections Fellow at the Center for Southwest Research. Travis holds a B.A. in Native American Studies and in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico. As an El Puente Research Fellow at UNM, he researched traditional and contemporary running practices in Native American communities and among Indigenous diasporas. From his own experience with long-distance and prayer running, Travis looked at how this activity, rooted in cultural knowledge and land-based practice, can itself be a means of research and raising consciousness. In Spring 2023, he co-organized the Traditions of Endurance conference which invited primarily Indigenous voices to celebrate and discuss the many roles of dancing and running in their lives and communities. In his graduate program, he aims to continue this research into running epistemology, as well as look at how Chicanx and Indigenous storytellers enrich and infuse the pop culture phenomenon of comics with personal and culturally relevant narratives and representation. Travis hopes to use this medium of graphic storytelling in his own presentation of research and personal narrative, highlighting its importance in disseminating regional stories and worldbuilding.
