Dr. Arlene Torres is an Associate Professor in the Department of Africana, Puerto Rican/Latino Studies at Hunter College. She is a cultural anthropologist with expertise in Caribbean, Latina/Latino, and Latin American Studies. As a public intellectual, Dr. Torres has served as a member of the Advisory Board and consultant to a national project on RACE supported by the American Anthropological Association, National Science Foundation and Ford Foundation. She is Past-President of the Puerto Rican Studies Association and Past-President of the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists, a division of the American Anthropological Association.
Dr. Torres’ publications include two edited volumes with Norman E. Whitten, Jr. & Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean. “Collecting Puerto Ricans” In Kevin Yelvington (ed.) Afro-Atlantic Dialogues: Anthropology in the Diaspora. Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press, reflect Torres’ intellectual concerns. Dr. Torres focuses on the racialization of ethnic groups in varied cultural and institutional settings works on several university, college-wide, and community organizations to support the educational advancement of underrepresented communities in higher education.
As an administrative and faculty mentor, she co-directed the CUNY-Harvard Leadership Development Program, the Mellon Faculty Diversity Career Enhancement Grant and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program at Hunter College. She served as University Dean for Recruitment and Diversity and the Director of the Chancellor’s Latino Faculty Initiative in Academic Affairs in the Central Administration at CUNY.