Dr. Rafael Fernández De Castro

Biography

Rafael Fernández de Castro is a Professor and holds the Aaron Feldman Family Chancellor's Endowed Chair in U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He is also the director of the school's Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies (USMEX). With experience as a foreign policy adviser to former President Felipe Calderón, Fernández de Castro is an expert in bilateral relations between Mexico and the United States. He is the founder of the Department of International Studies at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) in Mexico City. He has published numerous academic articles and books, including "Contemporary U.S.-Latin American Relations: Cooperation or Conflict in the 21st Century?" and "The United States and Mexico: Partnership or Conflict?" alongside Jorge Domínguez. Additionally, he worked as Project Director for the UNDP’s Human Development Report for Latin America in 2013-2014, focusing on "Citizen Security with a Human Face: Evidence and Proposals for Latin America." As a founder and editor of Foreign Affairs Latin America, he also contributes to the daily newspaper El Financiero and regularly collaborates with Televisa. His current research includes a book on leadership decision-making in Mexican foreign policy, as well as serving as the principal investigator, alongside Professor Jenny Pearce from the London School of Economics, on a project about security provision in Mexico funded by Mexico’s National Council of Science and Technology and the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council. This work involves community and civil society efforts to address the impacts of violence and insecurity across four violence-affected cities: Tijuana, Apatzingán, Acapulco, and Guadalupe.

Research Interests