Lynn Marie Stephen

Lynn Stephen is a Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences Professor, Anthropology at the University of Oregon. Stephen is an academic expert on immigration, asylum and gendered asylum in the U.S., gendered violence, transnational communities, indigenous immigrants from Latin America, Mexico, and Central America, and Latino community histories in the Northwest. A 2022 fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Stephen was cited for “distinguished contributions to the fields of anthropology, Latinx and Latin American Studies, particularly for her theorizing and ethnography of Indigenous women, Indigenous migrants, transborder communities, migration and social movements.” She founded the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies.

She has written or edited 12 books and more than 90 academic articles. She has been president of the Latin American Studies Association.

She is currently conducting research on access to justice for Guatemalan indigenous refugees fleeing violence in the Guatemalan justice system and in U.S. immigration courts. In residence at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California San Diego as a fellow during 2018-2019, she spent time in Tijuana, a shelter for migrant families in San Diego, and in Central America and Mexico. She is currently writing and giving public talks on why Central Americas flee their countries and come to the U.S.