Esther Hernández-Medina

Professor Hernández-Medina is a feminist academic, public policy expert and activist from the Dominican Republic, passionate about answering the question of how historically marginalized groups such as women, racial, ethnic and sexual minorities and communities are able to change public policy in their favor. She has done research on this topic in Mexico, Brazil and her own country by looking at citizen participation in urban policies in São Paulo and Mexico City, the Dominican feminist movement, and the participatory budgeting model in the Dominican Republic and São Paulo.

Her academic work has been published in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Caribbean Studies, Berkeley Journal of Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies and Estudios Sociales. She also published a book chapter on the experience of teaching and learning during the pandemic with then Pomona senior Malak Afaneh ’21 in the edited volume Global Feminist Autoethnographies During COVID-19: Displacements and Disruptions (Routledge, editors Beoku-Betts, Josephine; Akosua Darkwah; Melanie Heath; and Bandana Purkayastha).

Other recent publications include the book chapter “The Right to A Complete Life: The Struggles of the Dominican Feminist Movement” published in November 2023 as part of the edited volume Women’s Rights in Movement: Dynamics of Feminist Change in Latin America and the Caribbean (Springer, editors Inés M. Pousadela and Simone Bohn). Hernández-Medina was also a guest co-editor of the edited volume Embodiment and Representations of Beauty published in September 2024 for the Advances in Gender Research book series (Emerald, editors Vicky Demos and Marcia Segal) along with Sharina Maillo-Pozo (University of Georgia), with whom she also wrote the introduction to the volume entitled “The Power of Beauty: Intersectional Feminist Approaches to its Embodiment and Representation.”

As a big believer in collaborative research and action, she has been twice awarded the Humanities Studio Faculty Fellowship at Pomona College. The first time, she was part of the group of senior students and faculty working on the theme of Movement during academic year 2021-2022. She was a HS fellow once again with the group that worked on Joy for academic year 2023-2024. Hernández-Medina has also been a recipient of the Inclusive Pedagogy Grant, and the Open Education Faculty Fellowship awarded by Pomona College and the Claremont Colleges Library respectively.

As a feminist activist, she co-founded Tertulia Feminista Magaly Pineda, along with Yildalina Tatem Brache in the Dominican Republic in May 2016. Named after the most important contemporary feminist leader in the country and one of the most renowned ones in Latin America and the Caribbean, la Tertulia aims to provide a safe space for women to debate and learn about historical and contemporary issues from a feminist perspective. She currently coordinates the group along with Rosa Matos, Angélica Rodríguez Bencosme, Rosalía Piña Vélez and Riamny Méndez. Additionally, Hernández-Medina is a long-time member of Foro Feminista Magaly Pineda, one of the most important feminist activist groups in the country also named after Pineda.