Bio

As a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Jennifer’s research looks at the intersection of Latinx identity and digital technologies. Before attending Rutgers University in 2016, she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with dual degrees in Spanish and film in 2008 and received her master’s degree in women’s and gender studies in 2014 from the GEMMA European Joint Master’s Degree program hosted by the University of Granada and Central European University. Her current research presents a unique genealogy of demographic categories to examine the intersections of Latinx identity with data and technology. Through her research, she hopes to interrogate the ways these identities have been formed by data and how data produces identities to think of new ways of understanding personhood. She is a recipient of the P.E.O. Scholar Award in 2022-2023. She was raised in Northern California by her Peruvian immigrant parents and is the first in her family to attend undergraduate and graduate school. Outside of academia, Jennifer is an animal and nature enthusiast who spends her free time watching TV series and films, trying new foods, and advocating for her community in New Jersey.

Selected Publications

Vilchez, Jennifer. “The Controversy Around Tomboy: the Aversion to Gender Theory in French Education and Culture.” Култура/Culture, vol. 5, no. 12, 2015, pp. 111-120, https://journals.cultcenter.net/index.php/culture/article/view/187.

Vilchez, Jennifer. “Hard to Swallow: Porn Star James Deen’s Arousing Work and Young Women Fandom.” Proceedings from the Summer School for Sexualities, Cultures and Politics 2014, Stanimir Panayotov and Ana Koncul (Eds.), Belgrade: IPAK.Center, 2015, http://www.ipakcentar.org/images/pdf/Panayotov_Koncul_SSSCP2014.pdf.

Vilchez, Jennifer. “Horror/ism, Vulnerability and Family Trauma in Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook.” Violence, Art, and Politics, Zoran Kurelić (Ed.), Zagreb: Faculty of Political Science - University of Zagreb, v. 71, 2015, pp. 176-194.

Vilchez, Jennifer. “Changing Bodies: The travestí as a metaphor for Spanish National Identity.” The Berkeley McNair Undergraduate Research Journal, i. 16, 2015, pp. 114-125.

Courses Taught

01:988:101 Introduction to Gender, Race, and Sexuality

01:988:202 Gender, Culture, and Representation

01:988:257 Gender and the Body: Representation and Pornography

01:988:258 Gender, Race, and Contemporary Art

01:988:317 Gender and Consumption

Fellowships/Grants/Awards

Center for Latino American Studies Small Grant Fund, 2018
Off-Campus Dissertation Development Award, Graduate School New Brunswick, Rutgers, 2018
Pre-Dissertation Special Study Award, Graduate School New Brunswick, Rutgers, 2017
Graduate School New Brunswick Diversity Fellowship, Rutgers, 2016-2019
European Commission Erasmus Mundus Programme Category A Scholarship, 2012-2014
Ronald E. McNair Undergraduate Research Scholarship, 2008
UC Berkeley Incentive Awards Scholarship, 2004-2008