Paulina Guerrero

Paulina was born in a little coastal town in Italy to artist parents and has roots and ties that extend throughout Latin America and Europe. She is an artist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research interests and writing center on folklore, gender, reproductive health/rights/justice, Latinx feminisms, and feminist ecologies. Her extensive experience in reproductive rights, health, and justice led her to become the National Programs Director of All-Options; a reproductive justice organization that supports folks in all of their pregnancy experiences including parenting, abortion, and adoption. In 2022 she provided Congressional Testimony on Roe Reversal to the Energy and Commerce Committee and was also the first expert witness on abortion restrictions in the United States for Indiana litigation. 

Throughout her work, she centers a deep investment in ethnographic research methods, literary analysis, and historical primary sources. She has also worked as a grassroots counselor and doula for the last 25 years providing emotional support through a holistic peer-recovery and harm-reduction model for various nonprofit and social work agencies. She has published peer-reviewed academic articles, magazine articles, and fantasy fiction.

When not doing too much work, she is exploring cities, foisting herself on her friends strewn across the globe, and pretending that she wants to knit when she really doesn’t want to. She has a background in dance, choreography, and theater and occasionally still makes raucous creations with beloved co-conspirators. She’s an aging punk kid at heart, and is probably listening to 90s grunge/hip-hop or feminist punk as you are reading this.

*A sample of publications can be found here. For a CV please email guerreropl@vcu.edu