Biography
Jessica De Alba-Ulloa (Visiting Assistant Professor) joins us from University of Maine. She holds a PhD from Université Paris-Saclay (2003) and has extensive teaching experience at a range of academic institutions in France, Nigeria, and Mexico where she spent most of her career as professor in the School of Global Studies at Anahuac University, in Mexico City. Her research focuses on applied IR theory, U.S. foreign policy, Latin America, migration, democracy, international organizations, and diplomacy, with numerous publications in books and peer- reviewed journals. An O’Gorman Fellow from the Institute for Latin American Studies (Columbia University), Salzburg Global Fellow, and Fulbright in National Security, Dr. De Alba-Ulloa is a Distinguished National Researcher level II recognized by Mexico’s Council of Science and Technology. Her comparative work is on Latin America: populism and democratic erosion, migration and borders, and the uneven reach of the state. Her book in progress, Half Citizens: Inequality, Democratic Erosion, and Migration in the Americas, developed as a Shared Inquiry Fellow at the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, treats inequality in the region as a distribution of citizenship.
She serves on the Nominating Committee of the International Studies Association (ISA), where she previously held leadership roles as Vice President, Representative-at-Large, and Chair of the Global South Committee. In Mexico, she served as Secretary-General and Vice President of the Mexican International Studies Association (AMEI), where she led major academic conventions and faculty development initiatives. She is a Senior Associate at the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (COMEXI), a Higher Education Ambassador for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and a frequent speaker at the Atlantic Dialogues hosted by the Policy Center for the New South in Morocco. Her professional experience includes service as Delegate for the Science Sector at the Mexican Permanent Mission to UNESCO, policy advising at the MexicanImmigration Institute, and Senior Associate at Kroll Mexico.
She spent the early part of her career in practice. She served as a diplomat at Mexico’s Permanent Mission to UNESCO in Paris, as adviser on the southern border to the Commissioner of Mexico’s National Institute of Migration, as adviser to the Undersecretary for Foreign Relations, and as a senior associate at Kroll México.
Selected Publications
Book Project
Half Citizens: Inequality, Democratic Erosion, and Migration in the Americas. In progress.
Guest-Edited Sections and Journal Forums
Villanueva, R., De Alba-Ulloa, J., González Olvera, P., & Lorenzini, M. E. (2024).
Missing voices: Latin American perspectives in International Relations. Guest-edited
special section, International Affairs, 100(1), 1–120.
Davies, G., De Alba-Ulloa, J., Ghosn, F., Gleditsch, K. S., Kneuer, M., Milner, H., &
Solingen, E. (2023). Forum: Challenges to Scholarship and Policy During Crises.
International Studies Review, 25(2). Contribution: The impact of COVID-19 on scholars
in the Global South.
Boyer, M. A., Thies, C. G., Pauly, L. W., Shih, C.-y., De Alba-Ulloa, J., et al. (2021).
Forum: Did “America First” Construct America Irrelevant? International Studies
Perspectives, 22(4), 458–494. Contribution: “America First” or cohabitation in Latin
America.
Leeds, B. A., Tickner, J. A., Wight, C., & De Alba-Ulloa, J. (2019). Forum: Power and
Rules in the Profession of International Studies. International Studies Review, 21(2),
188–209. Contribution: Power politics and International Relations studies in the Global
South.
Books and Edited Volumes
Morales Ramírez, D., Cattafi, C., De Alba-Ulloa, J., & Velázquez Flores, R. (eds.)
(2021). Relaciones Internacionales: diplomacia cultural, arte y política exterior (2nd
ed.). AMEI, Universidad Anáhuac México, CESPEM, UABC.
De Alba-Ulloa, J. (ed.) (2014). Libia: el final de la primavera. El conflicto libio
analizado por las teorías de Relaciones Internacionales. Tirant Humanidades.
Book and Handbook Chapters
De Alba-Ulloa, J. (2026). Heritage diplomacy: Mexico’s journey beyond restitution. In
V. Desai (ed.), Politics of Visual Arts in a Changing World 2014-2024 (328–345).
Columbia University Press.
De Alba-Ulloa, J. & Arciniega, P. (2026). Foreign policy analysis using the Two-Good
Methodology. In: M. López-Vallejo, A. Lozano Vázquez, H. Cuadra Montiel, & L.
González Villanueva (eds.). Metodología, métodos y herramientas metodológicas en
Relaciones Internacionales (127–140). Universidad Iberoamericana.
Domínguez, R., & De Alba-Ulloa, J. (2025). Reviewing the US-Latin American agenda.
In R. Domínguez & J. A. Sanahuja (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of EU-Latin American Relations (575–592). Palgrave Macmillan.
De Alba-Ulloa, J. (2024). Practice and theory: learning IR theories through case studies.
In J. Frueh, J. Ala, M. P. Murphy, & P. F. Diehl (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook on the
Pedagogy of International Relations Theory (503–512). Palgrave Macmillan.
Velázquez Flores, R., & De Alba-Ulloa, J. (2024). La política exterior de Andrés Manuel
López Obrador: un balance global y propuestas para la nueva administración 2024-2030.
In R. Velázquez Flores, J. A. Schiavon, & A. S. Ortega Ramírez (eds.), La política exterior de México 2024-2030: diagnóstico y propuestas (37–46). AMEI, Universidad Iberoamericana, CESPEM.