Rate My Professor Catherine Nolan

Catherine Nolan-Ferrell is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she has served since 2003, advancing from Assistant Professor in 2003-2010 to her current role since 2010. Prior to UTSA, she was Assistant Professor of History at Transylvania University from 2000 to 2003. She holds an A.B. in History and Government, cum laude in History, from Cornell University (1987); an M.A. in Latin American Studies with concentrations in History and Anthropology from Tulane University (1990); and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Texas at Austin (2000), with a dissertation on rural workers and labor organizing in southern Chiapas, Mexico.

Her research specializations include migration, refugees, citizenship and nationality, modern Mexico and Guatemala, and the history of gender in Latin America. Nolan-Ferrell authored the book Constructing Citizenship: Transnational Workers and Revolution on the Mexico-Guatemala Border, 1880-1950 (University of Arizona Press, 2012), along with its Spanish edition La construcción de ciudadanía: los trabajadores transnacionales y la Revolución en la frontera México Guatemala, 1880-1950 (UNAM/CIMSUR, 2018). Key publications also encompass 'Pedimos Posada: Local Mediators and Guatemalan Refugees in Mexico, 1978-1984' in Historia Crítica (2021), 'Agrarian Reform and Revolutionary Justice in the Soconusco, Chiapas: Campesinos and the Mexican State, 1934-1940' in Journal of Latin American Studies (2010), and 'Coffee Workers, Transnational Communities, and Identity on the Guatemalan/Mexican Border, 1931-1941' in Workers Across the Americas (Oxford University Press, 2011). Her current book project, Migrants or Refugees? Violence and Forced Migration in Southern Mexico and Guatemala, 1950-2000, examines Guatemalan migration into Chiapas amid mass violence. Among her major awards are a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for Faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions ($60,000, 2022-2023), UTSA President’s Distinguished Achievement Awards for Teaching Excellence (2012) and Community Engagement (2020), Fulbright IIE-García Robles Research Grant (1996-1997), and American Historical Association Albert J. Beveridge Grant (2004). She leads study abroad and service learning programs in Oaxaca, Mexico, and contributes to public history through oral history workshops.