alai

Curriculum Vitae
Full Name
Alai Reyes-Santos
First Name
Alaí
Last Name
Reyes-Santos
Affiliation
Faculty
Title
Professor of Practice
Phone
541-346-0928
Office Hours
Fall 2020: MW 12-1 PM & By Appt. Email To Schedule Appts. https://calendly.com/alaireyessantos
Departments
Latinx
Law
Law-CRES
Affiliated Departments
Latinx
Law
Law-CRES
Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies
Programs, Research and Outreach
Appropriate Dispute Resolution Center
Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center
Teaching Level
Doctoral
Masters
Undergraduate
Interests
ComparativeEthnic Studies, Black Diaspora Studies, Afro-Latin@/x Studies, Afro-Indigenous Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Environmental Studies, Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Profile Section
Publications

Blogs, Op-Eds, Interviews, see https://www.alaireyessantos.com/media

Digital and other Public-Facing Projects, see https://www.alaireyessantos.com/research

Publications, see https://www.alaireyessantos.com/selected-essays

“Cuando Yemayá dejó a Ogún, o imaginando lo inimaginable.” Centro Journal. (Winter 2024)

Healers: Afro-Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Medicinal Knowledge. https://healers.uoregon.edu/ (Aug 2024)

Sanadores: Descolonizando el conocimiento desde las tradiciones afro-indígenas. https://healers.uoregon.edu/inicio (August 2024)

“Radical Boricuir Ecologies.” Co-authored. Centro Journal 35.1 (2023): 153-177.

“Afro-Indigenous Women Healers in the Caribbean and its Diasporas: A Decolonial
Digital Humanities Project.”
Co-authored. Digital Humanities Quarterly. 16.3 (2022).  

Water Justice Policy Framework. Co-authored. www.oregonwaterfutures.org. (Dec. 2022)

“How Clean Is Your Water? An Oregon Initiative Brings Water Testing to the People.” Co-authored. Impact: American Water Resources Association Journal. July/August 2022. https://online.flippingbook.com/view/788732778/

Conocimientos Ancestrales: Descolonizando el conocimiento desde las tradiciones afro-indígenas. (with Ana-Maurine Lara) Editorial Búho, 2021.

Oregon Water Futures Project Report: 2020-2021 Community Engagement. Co-authored. https://www.oregonwaterfutures.org/report-20-21

City of Eugene Climate Action Plan 2.0: Equity Panel Case Study. Co-Authored. 2019. https://www.alaireyessantos.com/_files/ugd/437def_afd2762c11944ab7b6d06d96205dfeee.pdf

"Mangú y Mofongo: Intra-Latinx Subjectivities in Dominican-Puerto Rican Families." Co-author Ana-Maurine Lara. Centro Journal, 2018.

“On Pan-Antillean Politics: Betances and Luperón Speak to the Present.” Callaloo 36.1 (2013): 142–157.

Our Caribbean Kin: Race and Nation in the Neoliberal AntillesRutgers University Press, 2015.

"Afro-descendencia y pan-americanismo en el pensamiento antillanista del siglo diecinueve." Estudios Sociales XLI.154 (May 2013): 29-51.

“Capital neoliberal, raza, migración: relaciones domínico-haitianas y domínico-puertorriqueñas.” Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales 24.1 (February 2008): 13-34. 

"Notas sobre identidades étnicas y raciales dominicanas." Co-author Ramona Hernandez. Afrodescendendientes en México y Nuestra América. Ed. Jesús María Serna e Israel Ugalde Quintana. Centro de Investigaciones sobre América Latina y el Caribe, UNAM: 2019.

“Anowa and Tituba, Witch or Feminist?: A Comparative Study of Two Postcolonial Characters.” African Diasporas: Ancestors, Migrations and Boundaries. Eds. Robert Cancel and Winifred Woodhull. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2008. African Literature Association Annual Series Vol. 14: 115-123.

Grants and Fellowships

2024-2025   HydroHub Community Benefits Plan, Sub-awardee, Washington State University/US Department of Energy

2024            Borifuturos Campesinos, Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies, UO

2023-2026   Water Equity Fund/Community Water Justice Awards, Oregon State Budget Allocation (1.5 million)

2023-2027    Community Engagement Strategist for Region 10 Environmental Justice Technical Assistance Center, Willamette Partnership/Portland State      

                    University, Environmental Protection Agency Grant                  

2023            Bridging the Divide: Public Humanities, Center for Puerto Rican Studies/Mellon Foundation (not accepted)

2022-2024    IDEAL Grant, University of Oregon

2022             Research Fellow, Dominican Studies Institute, City University of New York

2022             Public Health Modernization Grant, Willamette Partnership-Oregon Health Authority

2021             Collaborative Grant, Meyer Memorial Trust Foundation

2021-2024     Just Futures Grant, Creation of PNW Just Futures Institute for Climate and Racial Justice (JFI), Mellon Foundation

2021-2024     Research Grant, Mellon Foundation/PNW Just Futures Institute, U of Oregon

2020              Collaborative Grant, Meyer Memorial Trust Foundation

2020              Resiliency Initiative Seed Funding, Vice-President for Research and Innovation, U of Oregon

Education

Ph.D. University of California, San Diego, Literature, 2007

M.A. University of California, San Diego, Spanish, 2004

B.A. University of Puerto Rico, Comparative Literature, magna cum laude, 2001

Biography

At University of Oregon, Dr. Alaí Reyes-Santos serves as a Professor of Practice at U of Oregon's School of Law; Director of the Mellon Foundation-funded (4.5 million) PNW Just Futures Institute for Climate and Racial Justice; and Director of the Water Equity Fund (1.5 million funded by an Oregon state budget allocation) at JFI/Climate Solutions Center. An award-winning teacher, her Ted-talk “Building Intercultural Communities” is used in higher ed and popular education to initiate guidelines for dialogue across difference.

She is also the founder of ACC, a BIPOC-led consulting firm that facilitates organizational transformations and community engagement in the non-profit sector, government, higher ed, arts and cultural initiatives, emergency preparedness and response, and social and environmental justice organizations.  ACC is currently a named partner in the Environmental Justice Technical Assistance Center funded by the Environmental Protection Agency to serve Region 10.

Dr. Reyes-Santos currently serves in Oregon's Racial Justice Council's Environmental Equity Committee providing recommendations to the Office of the Governor.

The community-action research project she co-founded and co-led for four years as a member of Oregon Water Futures Collaborative contributes to the articulation of a water justice agenda in the state and nationwide. After supporting a 530 million dollars water package, OWF moved to its second outreach phase in 2022 and completed a Water Justice Policy Framework; the framework informed the Drought Package passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2023, and continues to shape a cutting-edge Water Justice Leadership Institute led by Verde. The innovative Water Justice Network emerging from within OWF's advocacy centers people of color, women, and queer leadership in the water sector.

The digital humanities site The Healers Project: Decolonizing Knowledge Within AfroIndigenous traditions-co-authored by Dr. Reyes-Santos with Dr. Ana-Maurine Lara and U of Oregon Libraries-showcases interviews with healers and traditional ecological knowledge keepers, ethnobotanical guides, multimedia essays, and curriculum and bibliographical resources.

https://www.alaireyessantos.com/

 

 

 
Courses

LAW 610 Environmental Justice

LAW 693 Human Rights and the Environment

Honors and Awards

2023              

Selected Planning Committee Member, “Integrating the Human Sciences to Scale Societal Responses to Environmental Change,"  National Academies of Sciences           

2022              

Racial Equity and Sustainability Collaborations Award, Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education

Featured by Color of Water: Top Directory of BIPOC Water Experts

Excellence in Teaching, Sustainability Awards, U of Oregon              

Honorable Mention, Best Public Project, Latin American Studies Association/ Archives, Libraries and Digital Scholarship Section

2020              

Woman of Recognition, NAACP Eugene-Springfield Chapter, Oregon

2016              

Distinguished Woman of Achievement, Black Women of Achievement, U of Oregon

2015              

Ersted Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Oregon

Updated

Member for

9 years 11 months