Frances Negrón-Muntaner

Frances Negrón-Muntaner is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, curator, scholar and professor at Columbia University, where she is the founding director of the Media and Idea Lab and founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activism Archive at Columbia’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. Among her books and publications are: Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture (CHOICE Award, 2004), The Latino Media Gap (2014), and Sovereign Acts (forthcoming). Her most recent films include Small City, Big Change (2013), War for Guam (2015) and Life Outside (2016).

For her work as a scholar and filmmaker, Negrón-Muntaner has received Ford, Truman, Scripps Howard, Rockefeller, Pew, and Chang-Chavkin fellowships. Major funders such as Social Science Research Council, Andy Warhol Foundation, and Independent Television Service have also supported her work. In 2008, the United Nations' Rapid Response Media Mechanism recognized her as a global expert in the areas of mass media and Latin/o American studies; in 2012, she received the Lenfest Award, one of Columbia University's most prestigious recognitions for excellence in teaching and scholarship. Negrón-Muntaner also served as director of Columbia’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race from 2009-2016.