About

As a recently appointed Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Sociology, in the department of Sociology and Anthropology, at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), I am collaborating with Dr. Feng Yu from UTEP’s Mathematical Sciences department to apply innovative statistical methods, like tensor decomposition, to better understand the health risks migrants face on their journey to the United States. This innovative approach allows us to uncover complex, latent structures in migrant risk profiles and further refine models for predicting vulnerabilities. Another project uses difference-in-differences analysis, and negative binomial with fixed effects models, to understand how the territorial control of criminal organizations affects the health risks migrants experience when crossing the U.S-Mexico border. I also unsupervised machine learning methods, like K-Means, to understand the geographies of health risks for migrants, in the context of territories contested by criminal organizations. Additionally, I use Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), as well as machine learning techniques, including Deep Neural Networks, XGBoost, to analyze how different demographic and environmental factors correlate with higher levels of hazards for migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. This research aims to advance the discussion about health outcomes-linked to socio-economic disadvantages, offering a nuanced understanding of the compounded risks migrants face. It will also create predictive models that will help inform policy interventions to protect vulnerable migrant populations.