Sandy Placido

Sandy Placido is a Provost’s Predoctoral Fellow for Excellence through Diversity at the University of Pennsylvania. She comes from Harvard University, where she is a PhD Candidate in American Studies. Sandy is an interdisciplinary scholar who combines methods in History, Anthropology, Performance Studies, Literature, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her interests include women's history, social movements, Caribbean studies, Afro-diasporic studies, Latina/o/x Studies, and popular culture. Sandy's dissertation, “A Global Vision: Dr. Ana Livia Cordero and the Puerto Rican Liberation Struggle, 1931-1992,” is the first, in-depth study of Ana Livia Cordero, a Puerto Rican female physician and anti-imperialist activist. Cordero was a Cold War freedom fighter who dedicated her life to Puerto Rican liberation, and forged rich ties with activists throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States. Sandy's research on Cordero has taken her to Ghana, Puerto Rico, and various parts of the United States, and she has facilitated so that Cordero's papers could be archived at Harvard's Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. Sandy received her B.A. in American Studies and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration from Yale University, and she is a proud Mellon Mays and Ford Foundation fellow. Before beginning graduate school, she was an immigrant rights organizer in New York City who worked with Dominican communities impacted by racialized incarceration and deportation policies.