Dr. Campos-Medina is a researcher, Cornell RTE Faculty, and labor educator focusing on the intersection of race, immigration status, and workers’ rights. She is a Senior Extension Associate Faculty and the Executive Director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, where she leads research, policy innovation, and training to advance worker justice, collective bargaining rights, and the interest of workers in today’s economy and society.
She is a political scientist and policy expert on workplace and labor issues, women rights, voting rights, immigrant worker justice, and US trade relations. She holds a PhD from Rutgers University and a BS and MPA from Cornell University. She is a member of Diverse Solidarity Economies (DISE), a collective of Black and Brown feminist scholars focused on research that decolonizes and diversifies the field of political economy. She is a Visiting Fellow at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Publications:
Beyond Racial Capitalism, Cooperatives in the African Diaspora. Edited by Caroline Shenaz Hossein, Sharon D Wright Austin and Kevin Edmonds. Oxford University Press. Chapter 4: Tandas and Cooperativas: Understanding the financial social economy of indigenous Mexican immigrants settled in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and Staten Island, New York, U.S. by Patricia Campos Medina, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University with Sol Aramendi and Erika Nava. Spring 2023: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/beyond-racial-capitalism-9780192868336?cc=us&lang=en&
Intersecting Power Approach to Immigrant Worker Justice. Darlène Dubuisson, Patricia Campos-Medina, Shannon Gleeson, Kate Griffith. (2023). Centering Race in Studies of Low-Wage Immigrant Labor. Annual Review of Law and Social Science 2023 19:1, 109-129.
Not Legal. Not Illegal. Just TPS. Examining the Integration Experience of Central American Immigrants Living under a Regime of Long-Term Temporality. A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in the Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers University-Newark. Written under the direction of Dissertation Committee Chair: Dr. Ariane Chebel d’Appollonia, Rutgers University. Approved October 2019. https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/61647/
Current research underway:
Displaced and Uprooted: Stories of Belonging; Cornell Migrations/Carnegie Mellon Fund: Central American TPS Workers’ Defiant Struggle for their Right to Stay Home in US. This ongoing research project is funded by the Cornell Migrations Project (with funds from Carnegie Mellon Fam Fund). Expected publication Spring-Fall 2024
Education:
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD); Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Department of Global Affairs, Rutgers- Newark. October 2019
Masters of Public Administration (MPA). Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Cornell Institute of Public Affairs (CIPA). May 1997
Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations (BS). Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, May 1996. Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR)
“Stories of Belonging” explores the history of TPS (Temporary Protective Status) workers, who are fully employed, have resided and worked in the U.S. for more than 25 years, and their struggle for their rights as migrant workers and for the right to American citizenship.
Learn MoreJoin us for a talk and walking tour of the “Stories of Belonging” photo exhibit. Meet and listen to the project organizers and TPS community members speak about their experiences within the movement for migrant worker rights, immigrant worker justice, workplace justice, union organizing, and American rights of citizenship.
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