Kathleen Staudt, Ph.D.
Kathleen (Kathy) Staudt, Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin, 1976) retired as Professor of Political Science and Endowed Professor of Western Hemispheric Trade Policy Studies. She joined the faculty in 1977, supervised interns, and taught courses on public policy, borders, democracy, leadership and civic engagement, and women and politics. In 2008, she received the UT Chancellor's Innovation in Teaching award, one of two Texas-wide. Kathleen founded the Center for Civic Engagement in 1998 and directed it for ten years.
Staudt's research interests, published in over 100 journal articles and chapters in books, include borders, women/gender in international development, immigration, education, activism and violence. Staudt has authored and edited twenty books, nine of which focus on the U.S.-Mexico border, including Violence and Activism at the Border (University of Texas Press 2008), and is lead editor of Human Rights Along the U.S.-Mexico Border: Gendered Violence and Insecurity (University of Arizona Press 2009) and Cities and Citizenship at the U.S.-Mexico Border: The Paso del Norte Metropolitan Region (Palgrave USA 2010). She joined Tony Payan, lead co-editor, and Z. Anthony Kruszewski in coediting A War that Can't be Won: Binational Perspectives on the Drug War (University of Arizona Press 2013). Her latest books are Border Politics in a Global Era: Comparative Perspectives (2017) and Hope for Justice and Power: Broad-based organizing in the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation (2020).
Dr. Staudt completed academic articles with a research team, drawing on a successful NIH proposal, to examine environmental factors related to health outcomes in a community located in northwest El Paso County. She and Zulma Méndez recently published Courage, Resistance, and Women in Ciudad Juárez: Challenges to Militarization (University of Texas Press 2015). Kathleen completed her part of an 8-site study, funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, on cross-border governance with a special focus on business. With former UTEP student Manuel Gutierrez, soon to get his PhD as ASU, she has a forthcoming chapter on local governments at the US-Mexico Border in an edited volume on the Borderlands Commons, University of Arizona Press. She is currently working with a research team, led by Carleton University political scientist Laura Macdonald, on transnational civil society organizing in North America, funded by the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council.
Announcements
November 4, 2011: Dr. Staudt Honored with Prestigious "Border Hero" Award for Service
Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center has named Dr. Kathleen (Kathy) Staudt as a BORDER HERO! She was honored at an event at Temple Mount Sinai, 4408 North Stanton. The event was organized by Louie Gilot, Director of Las Americas. Dr. Staudt has also been featured on a billboard on I-10 West near Bassett Center to announce the honor (see here ).
Texas House Resolution No. 1564, adopted May 4, 2009, as “an expression of high regard by the Texas House of Representatives” for Dr. Kathleen Staudt (see photo here).
To summarize the WHEREAS statements:
“Staudt has received the 2009 BRAVO Award from the League of Women Voters of El Paso”…
“…for nearly a decade, Dr. Staudt served as the director of the Center for Civic Engagement at UTEP….she also helped establish the Women’s Fund of El Paso and the Paso del Norte Nonprofit Resource Center” [now called the Nonprofit Enterprise Center; www.nonprofitec.org ]... “ she contributed to local schools by offering numerous training sessions to educators on such topics as drop-out prevention and service-learning” … “and [she] remained an ardent supporter of voter education and women’s rights”…
“…has further distinguished herself as a leading scholar on social justice issues that arise along the United-States Mexico border…and has published a number of books…”
“…Dr. Staudt is an inspiration to all who know her, and she may indeed reflect with great pride on the positive impact she has had on her community…”
Signed, with a State Seal, by Speaker of the House Joe Straus and certified by Robert Haney, Chief Clerk of the House and Norma Chávez, State Representative District 76.