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Topic: Immigration

Adriann Wycoff

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Adriann Wycoff, Ph.D., is a professor of Chicana/o Studies and holds a courtesy appointment as an associate professor of Women’s Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Apart from teaching she is also Director of the MSU Denver Family Literacy Program and Co-Principal Investigator of the College Assistance Migrant Program. She has more than thirty years’ experience in community-based, non-traditional education. Her responsibilities have included teaching, program administration, curriculum development, grant writing, community outreach and public relations. Wycoff holds a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, also in Spanish.

Marc Rodriguez

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Marc Rodriguez, M.A., is the Parents as Teachers Coordinator and Parenting Coordinator in the Family Literacy program at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include K-12 education, parenting skills, Sheltered (ESL) Instruction, and educational administration.

Rodriguez has been with MSU Denver for 10 years. In addition to working at MSU Denver, Rodriguez works as a Teacher Effectiveness Coach at Denver Public Schools.

Rodriguez received both his master’s degree in educational administration and his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from University of Colorado – Denver in 1995 and 1990, respectively.

Luis Rivas

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Luis Rivas, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of English at Metropolitan State University. His areas of expertise include rhetoric and composition theory, students of migrant/seasonal-farmworkers and post secondary education.

Rivas previously worked as director of the College Assistance Migrant Program where he oversaw daily activities reporting to the Office of Migrant Education. He also attended and presented at several Office of Migrant Education sponsored conferences to share relevant experience with other CAMP programs. Prior, he also worked as a student liaison in 2010 for CAMP, where he developed workshops and other activities for students.

Rivas received his Ph.D. in composition and rhetoric theory and a master’s in creative writing in poetry from the University of Nebraska. He received his bachelor’s in English from York College.

David Piacenti

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David Piacenti teaches Prejudice & Discrimination, Contemporary Sociology, Art & Craft of Sociology Writing, and Sociological Theory: Past and Present.

He has taught at Metropolitan State University of Denver since 2010.

Piacenti has published “Yucatec-Mayan Immigration to the Mission and Edison Neighborhoods: A Comparison of Social Conditions and Immigrant Satisfaction” in the Journal of Méxican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, “The Tangle of Anthropological Tourism: How the Consumption of Fantasy and Academia Share Common Spaces” in Applied Anthropologist and “For Love of Family and Family Values: How Immigrant Motivations Can Inform Immigration Policy” in the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy.

Marina Pereira

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Professor Marina Pereira has taught graduate courses in the Graduate Social Work program as MSU Denver. She has taught at Metropolitan State University of Denver since 1999.

Professor Pereira is well versed in topics of mental health and families. She has special interest in issues of acculturation, diversity and first-generation Latino students. She was an advisor for the Student Association of Social Workers (SASW), a student organization that helps students develop and increase their sense of civic responsibility and community engagement by service learning activities.

Before teaching at MSU Denver, Pereira worked in the areas of medical social work and mental health, where she specialized in treating and advocating for children and families with a history of domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse.

Alexandre Padilla

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Alexandre Padilla, Ph.D., is the chair and professor of the Department of Economics at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include insider trading, business economics, stock exchanges, securities and regulation, economic analysis of political decisions and business ethics. He is currently teaching Principles of Microeconomics.

Padilla has taught at MSU Denver since 2002. He serves as the director of the Exploring Economic Freedom Project at MSU Denver, which educates students and the general public about the role of economic and political freedom in promoting entrepreneurship, economic growth, prosperity and peace.

He has published several academic papers on insider trading in the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Commentaries in Law & Economics and Florida State Business Review. His current research involves studying how insider trading is perceived among academics and nonacademics. Other research interests include studying self-governance mechanisms in nontraditional industries and economic policy related to immigration.

Padilla earned his doctorate, master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Economics from the University of Law, Economics and Science of Aix-Marseille III in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Denise Mowder

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Denise Mowder, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Metropolitan State University of Denver where she currently teaches classes in criminal justice ethics and victimology. Mowder has worked as an attorney and for more than 10 years as prosecutor in Oregon, where she has prosecuted cases involving domestic violence, child abuse and sexual assault. She specializes in trail practice, investigations and victim advocacy, and her research areas involve the impact of current immigration law, undocumented battered Latina women and the wrongful conviction of factually innocent.

Mowder received her Ph.D. in criminal justice from Washington State University in 2010, her J.D. from Willamette College of Law in 1994 and her bachelor’s from the University of Colorado Denver.