Estrella Torrez

Estrella Torrez, PhD is a community-based scholar of Latinx and Indigenous education. She is a Professor at Michigan State University, where she teaches primarily in MSU’s Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH). She is also core faculty in MSU’s Chicano/Latino Studies and American Indian and Indigenous Studies programs. As an engaged scholar, her transdisciplinary and intersectional teaching/scholarship/service revolves around the co-production of community-based knowledge and its recovery and resurgence. Much of this work purposely collaborates with undergraduate students and non-university community members and employs testimonios. Her research centers on equity and justice, particularly around language politics and community-based knowledge among rural Latinx and urban Indigenous communities. Her teaching focuses on community literacies, intergenerational community engagement, youth participatory action research and language and culture.

Dr. Torrez earned her PhD from The University of New Mexico in Educational Thought and Sociocultural Studies with a concentration in Bilingual Education. As a child, Dr. Torrez attended schools for migrant farmworker children until, at the age of 12, she began working alongside her family in the fields. Later, she briefly taught within the migrant educational system, also working shortly for the Office of Migrant Education in Washington, DC. Dr. Torrez is a Gates Millennium Scholar, being awarded the prestigious award during its inaugural year.

She has published in Journal of Latinos and Education, Journal of Indigenous Research, English Journal, Bilingual Review/Revista Bilingüe, Journal of Public Scholarship in Higher Education, Chicana/Latina Studies: the Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, American Indian Education Journal, Multicultural Education, among others. In 2009 she co-founded the Indigenous Youth Empowerment Program, an intergenerational community program providing cultural and language-based programs. In 2011-2013, she was appointed to serve as a commissioner on the Detroit Metropolitan Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She is currently a member of MSU’s Higher Learning Commission Assessment Academy, serves on the University’s DEI Strategic Subcommittee of the Institutional Strategic Planning Implementation Committee, and is a founding member of the Michigan Association for Latinxs in Higher Education. From 2017-2021, she served as co-chair of the Womxn of Color Initiatives at MSU where she coordinated residencies for visiting authors, scholars, and artists. In 2023, her work with Latinx and Indigenous communities was recognized with the Michigan State University Outreach and Engagement Distinguished Partnership Award for Community Engaged Creative Activity.