Isabel Martinez, PhD

Ellen Riojas Clark, PhD, Endowed Chair in Bicultural-Bilingual Studies

Associate Professor, Bicultural-Bilingual Studies / Interdisciplinary School for Engagement

Isabel Martinez’s areas of expertise include international youth migration, Latinx youthhoods, teaching and learning in Hispanic Serving Institutions and Latinx performance studies.

Her central line of inquiry focuses on unaccompanied immigrant youths — primarily from Mexico and Central America — and the ways that they experience and understand their transitions to adulthood in New York City and more recently, Massachusetts. This research resulted in the recent completion of a digital testimonio project with Guatemalan K’iche youths and the groundbreaking monograph Becoming Transnational Youth Workers: Independent Mexican Teenage Workers and Pathways of Survival and Social Mobility (Rutgers University Press, 2019), as well as numerous reports and programming including her decade-long internship program U-LAMP (Unaccompanied Latin American Minor Project).

Martinez is also the co-editor of two books: Crossing Digital Fronteras: Rehumanizing Latinx Education and Digital Humanities (SUNY Press, 2024) and Navegar por terrenos disputados: Casos Etnográficos por la vida migrante (Prensa de la BUAP, 2023). She is currently working on a monograph that documents a history of Latinx comedy, stand-up and sketch, in New York City. 

In addition, Martinez has received over $300,000 in grants and awards to support her research, including a 2024-2025 Mass Humanities Expand Massachusetts Stories grant.

Martinez earned her PhD in Sociology and Education from Columbia University. Prior to joining UT San Antonio, she served on the faculty at Northeastern University and the City University of New York.