On September 16, 2026, GWSS doctoral student Catalina Velasquez successfully defended her dissertation, Solidarity Infrastructure: Decolonial Feminist Praxis and the Organizational Life of Immigrant Justice. Catalina’s extraordinary dissertation starts from two main premises: that non-profit organizational form is designed to absorb radical movements for justice and that communities most affected by State violence have, in the past and present, generated organizational knowledge the movements for social justice need. Catalina’s study is an outstanding example of feminist praxis research as she writes from an on-the-ground perspective of a non-profit director, who builds solidarity infrastructure in theory and practice while thinking along with a rich array of decolonial, trans, and Chicane theorizers.
Catalina is both a scholar of feminist studies and the Executive Director the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN), a queer and transgender-founded and -led statewide immigrant justice network in Washington state. She has already made a profound impact in immigrant justice organizing, and we are confident her future scholarship will profoundly impact feminist work to reshape or remake the non-profit impulse.
Advisors Professor Christine Keating and Professor Michelle Habell-Pallán and committee members Amanda Swarr and Carolyn Pinedo-Turnovsky celebrate the important work of Dr. Velasquez and congratulate her on this accomplishment!
¡Felicidades! Catalina!