Profile

BIOGRAPHY

John C. Arroyo, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in Engaging Diverse Communities and Director of the Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute for Racial and Climate Justice at the University of Oregon. He is graduate faculty in the Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies department as well as in the Historic Preservation program (UO Portland) and serves on the boards of the Center for Environmental Futures, Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS), and the Collaborative for Inclusive Urbanism (CIU). Arroyo is a nationally certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP).

Arroyo’s research focuses on the spatial, political, and cultural dimensions of seismic ethnic and racial demographic shifts in emerging gateways. His scholarship draws on applied theories in urban planning and design, migration studies, critical race and ethnic studies, human geography, and urban sociology. His current research (and forthcoming book project) examines the transnational spatial effects and local-level policy implications of exponential Mexican migration in high-growth U.S. suburban “new immigrant destinations” in the U.S. South.

His work has been supported by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, American Collegiate Schools of Planning, American Planning Association, California State Assembly, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, Mellon Foundation, MIT, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Research Council/Ford Foundation, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Southern Methodist University’s Latino Center for Leadership Development (LCLD) and John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies, and Southwest Airlines. He received a doctorate in Urban Planning, Policy, and Design as well as a Master’s in City Planning and a Certificate in Urban Design from MIT. Previously, he was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Latino Studies at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Arroyo’s research has been featured in The Eugene Register-Guard, Inside Higher Ed, KCET, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio (NPR), Oregon Public Broadcasting, The Oregonian, Public Broadcasting System (PBS), and U.S. News and World Report. He has lectured widely both nationally and internationally about the social and cultural aspects of urban design at Boston University, Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura La Salle (Universitat Ramon Llul, Barcelona), Georgia Tech, Harvard, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), MIT, Oxford, UCLA, University of Michigan, University of Oklahoma, University of Oregon, University of Southern California, University of Toronto, University of Virginia, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Wellesley, and Woodbury.

He has over 20 years of experience working with various arts and urbanism-related nonprofits, foundations, and government agencies in research, grantmaking, and technical assistance capacities across the US, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. They include Americans for the Arts, ArtPlace America, Bahamas National Trust, California Department of Transportation, The California Endowment, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), The Getty Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, LA Conservancy, LA County Arts Commission, LA Department of Cultural Affairs, Leveraging Investments in Creativity, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Mexico’s Instituto del Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores (Infonavit), National Trust for Historic Preservation, Surdna Foundation, Welcoming America, and The World Bank.

Arroyo has served as the Project Manager for the Transnational Studies Initiative at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, as an Executive Fellow at the Coro Foundation’s Southern California Center for Civic Leadership, and as a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the UCLA Program on International Migration. In 2012 he co-founded Project 51, a UCLA-sponsored public humanities project about the L.A. River supported by ArtPlace America and the University of California Humanities Research Institute. He is a governor-appointed member of the Oregon State Advisory Committee on History Preservation and currently serves on the boards of the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (A2RU), the Public Humanities Network of the Consortium for Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI), and the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The son of Mexican immigrants, his commitment to social justice and overall approach to teaching, research, and service is rooted in his experience being born and raised in East L.A.