Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez received a PhD in anthropology from the University of California, San Diego (1975). His intellectual interests are broadly comparative and applied, and his publications include twelve books in English and Spanish, as well many articles and chapters. He has held tenured professorships in anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Arizona where, in 1982, he founded the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology. In 1994 he became dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of California, Riverside and founded the Ernest Galarza Applied Research Center. In 2011 he founded the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. He is Regents’ Professor of the School of Transborder Studies and School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and the Motorola Presidential Professor of Neighborhood Revitalization at Arizona State University. He has had numerous research and applied projects funded by private foundations and governmental agencies. His honors include the Bronislaw Malinowski Award (1994) by the Society of Applied Anthropology, Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (1993–94), elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1999), the Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology from the American Anthropology Association (2004), NACCS Rocky Mountain Foco Scholar (2016), the Saber es Poder Prize from the Institute for Mexicans Abroad and the Mexican American Studies Department of the University of Arizona (2018), and the Franz Boas Award (2020) and the Solon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology (2021) by the American Anthropological Association, among many other accolades.
In 2016 Vélez-Ibáñez became the first foreign anthropologist to be inducted as a corresponding member into the Mexican Academy of Sciences. His book Hegemonies of Language and Their Discontents was awarded an Honorable Mention by the American Association of Latina/o Anthropologists of the American Anthropology Association in 2018, and his 2020 Reflections of a Transborder Anthropologist from Netzahualcóyotl to Aztlán was selected for the Distinguished Author Award of the American Association of Hispanic Higher Education in 2021. His latest work, The Rise of Necro/Narco Citizenship:Belonging and Dying in the Southwest North American Region will be published in spring 2025.
The University of Arizona Press
