By Peggy McInerny, Director of Communications
The new academic chairs include both existing institute faculty and professors from other disciplinary departments at UCLA.
UCLA International Institute, October 28, 2026 — The International Institute is delighted to announce that three of the institute’s academic programs have new faculty chairs: the global health minor, Latin American studies M.A program and the international migration studies minor, respectively. We welcome existing institute faculty and new colleagues to these posts and thank the UCLA faculty members who recently stepped down for their many contributions to these vital programs.
Global Health Minor
Utpal Sandesara, assistant professor-in-residence in the David Geffen School of Medicine Department of Medicine and the International Institute, has become chair of the institute’s interdisciplinary global health minor. Sandesara joined UCLA in 2019 and became a faculty member in the program in 2023. Since that time, he has created three elective courses for the minor: Critical Global Health: Cases and Concepts; Envisioning Post-2025 Future for Global Health; and Reproduction and Power. He also serves as affiliated faculty for the UCLA Center for India and South Asia.
An internal medicine physician and sociocultural anthropologist, Sandesara works as a clinician, researcher and professor at UCLA. He provides primary care for socially and medically complex adult patients at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, a public safety-net hospital operated by LA County Health Services. His research addresses a range of social medicine issues, including reproductive health, medical inequality, family caregiving in serious illness and physician burnout. He has conducted research in India, Peru and urban and suburban United States.
His first book (with co-author Tom Wooten), “No One had the Tongue to Speak” (2011, Prometheus Press), was based on 147 oral history interviews and previously classified Indian government documents to uncover the antecedents and consequences of the 1979 Machhu Dam disaster, one of India’s deadliest floods. His second book and first monograph, “She is Not Ours,” examines the secretive phenomenon of sex-selective abortion in the Indian state of Gujarat and is currently under review by the publisher. (Read a recent profile of Sandesara and the global health program here.)
The institute extends its warmest thanks to Ippolytos Kalofonos, assistant professor-in- residence in the David Geffen’s School of Medicine’s Center for Social Medicine and Humanities and the International Institute, for his outstanding work as chair of the global health minor for the last four years (2022–2026). A medical anthropologist and practicing psychiatrist at the Greater Los Angeles Veteran Affairs Medical Center, Kalofonos stewarded the minor through a period of tremendous growth. Thanks in large part to his vision and leadership, the program is now the second most popular minor at UCLA!
Latin American Studies M.A. Program
Elizabeth O’Brien, associate professor of history at UCLA, has become chair of the interdisciplinary Latin American Studies M.A. Program. A historian of science and medicine, O’Brien studies women, gender and sexuality, with a regional focus on Latin American history. She joined UCLA in 2023 after several years at Johns Hopkins University. In addition to an M.A. in Latin American studies and Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas, Austin, O’Brien earned a Diplomado in the history of medicine from National Autonomous University of Mexico. She is a faculty affiliate of the Latin America Institute, serves on the faculty advisory committees of both the Center for Mexican Studies and the Center for the Study of Women, and is a senior editor of the Hispanic American Historical Review.
Her first book, “Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770–1940” (UNC, 2023), argues that modern obstetric violence and eugenics in Mexico are rooted in a historical framework of “salvation through surgery.” Covering the time period 1770–1940, the book demonstrates how religious and state authorities used medical force on marginalized and racialized women to control reproduction, maintain social hierarchies and shape national identity. The book has received numerous academic honors and awards, including the William H. Welch Medal (American Association for the History of Medicine), Best Book Award of the Latin American Studies Association (Nineteenth-Century Section), the Judy Ewell Award (Rocky Mountain Council of Latin American Studies), Best First Book Award in the History of Religions (American Academy of Religion) and Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize for a first book in the field of the history of women, gender and/or sexuality.
O’Brien is currently project director for a translation and critical edition of Francesco Cangiamila's influential 18th-century ecclesiastical text “Embriologia Sacra” (1751), which is supported by a $215,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant. She is also collaborating with a Bogotá-based artist to publish a graphic novel about the history of reproductive injustice in Mexico.
The institute extends its profound thanks to professor Bonnie Taub (Fielding School of Public Health) for her outstanding work as both co-chair of the Latin American Studies M.A. Program and associate director of the Latin American Institute (LAI) for over a decade. Her leadership and mentorship, as well as her fundraising successes, have contributed greatly to UCLA’s strong presence in Latin American studies.
We also thank UCLA Professor of Sociology and LAI Director Rubén Hernández-León, for co-chairing the M.A. program with Bonnie Taub for several years. Bonnie will continue to teach both undergraduates and graduate students in Latin American studies and Rubén will continue to direct LAI.
Migration Studies Minor
Professor of Sociology Andrés Villarreal has become chair of the international migration studies program of the International Institute. The minor is designed to give students an appreciation of international migration, drawing on a broad array of disciplines and methodological approaches to study this vast social and intellectual phenomenon.
A sociologist and social demographer, Villarreal joined UCLA in 2020 from the University of Maryland, College Park. Prior to that, he taught at the University of Texas. His research spans such topics as international migration, race and ethnicity, social inequality, crime and deviance, and health. He is currently a member of the executive committee of the California Center for Population Research and the faculty advisory committee for the UCLA Latin American Institute.
Much of his work focuses on Latin America, especially Mexico. Villarreal’s current research examines the social and health consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic; the role of self-employment in the assimilation of immigrants; and earnings gaps between documented and undocumented immigrants to the U.S. and the disparities of both with native Whites. He has won numerous research grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for his research.
The Institute expresses its deep appreciation to Professor of Sociology Cecilia Menjívar for serving as chair of the international migration studies program during the 2025–2026 academic year, while simultaneously directing the Center for the Study of International Migration, or CSIM. As chair, she made curriculum improvements with an eye toward expanding the minor and increasing its accessibility to more UCLA students. She continues to direct CSIM.
Published: Wednesday, October 28, 2026
