Melva Treviño Peña
Dr. Melva Treviño Peña (she/her/ella) is an assistant professor in the Fisheries, Animal, and Veterinary Sciences Department. She is a coastal human geographer and an ethnographer. Her broad research interests concern studying how intersecting identities (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, age, class, etc.) inform people’s perceptions of the environment and their responses to environmental change. Her current research in Rhode Island examines how and why members from marginalized ethnic and racialized communities, especially fishermen, seek shore access to improve their food security and overall well-being. Through this work, she aims to identify new and more equitable policy opportunities that strategically reduce barriers to coastal access for marginalized groups and recognize the contributions of self-provisioned fish to local & regional food security. Beyond her research pursuits, Dr. Treviño Peña actively engages in Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) initiatives both within and beyond the university, including serving on the Board of Directors of the Latinx Geographies Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers (2020-2023) and on the Executive Board of the England Faculty of Color Working Group since 2020.