Syracuse Sun

Selina Gallo-Cruz, an associate professor of sociology, has been named the latest O’Hanley Faculty Scholar at the Maxwell School. This honor recognizes her notable contributions to teaching and scholarship.

Gallo-Cruz will hold this title for three years and receive financial support for her research and teaching efforts. The O’Hanley Endowed Fund, established by Ronald O’Hanley III, chairman and CEO of State Street Global Advisors and a 1980 graduate of the Maxwell School, makes this designation possible.

Gallo-Cruz is also a senior research associate in the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration. She co-directs the advocacy and activism research team and is a research affiliate for the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Her academic work includes a focus on gender, violence, non-violence, and social movements in comparative contexts. She recently edited “Feminism, Violence and Nonviolence” (Edinburgh University Press, 2024) and authored “Political Invisibility and Mobilization: Women Against State Violence in Argentina, Yugoslavia, and Liberia” (Routledge, 2021), which received the American Sociological Association’s Peace, War and Social Conflict section’s Outstanding Book Award. In 2021, she was recognized as a Democracy Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and received the Fulbright-Tampere University Scholar Award. Her current research examines comparative policy and legislative conflicts over climate change and human trafficking.

Carol Faulkner, senior associate dean for academic affairs at Maxwell School says Gallo-Cruz enhances their emphasis on impactful public research. Faulkner describes Gallo-Cruz as an “outstanding and internationally recognized scholar of social movements and policy change,” who engages students with challenging global issues.

Before joining Maxwell School, Gallo-Cruz taught at College of the Holy Cross and Emory University.

Story by Mikayla Melo