Staff

Fernando J. Guerra, Ph.D.
Director



Fernando J. Guerra, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. Dr. Guerra served as Assistant to the President for Faculty Resources from 1992-96. He is a tenured Associate Professor of Political Science and Chicana/o Studies, and has served as Chairman of the Chicano Studies Department, Director of the American Cultures program and Director of the Summer in Mexico program. He has been on the faculty at Loyola Marymount University, since 1984.

Dr. Guerra earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, and his B.A. in International Relations, with a University Certificate in Latin American Studies, from the University of Southern California in 1980. Dr. Guerra was born and raised in the Northeast section of Los Angeles where he attended Franklin High School. He is currently a resident of Westchester, a community in the City of Los Angeles.

Dr. Guerra has written numerous scholarly articles and has also contributed to popular publications. His area of scholarly work is in state and local governance and urban and ethnic politics. He is currently working on a book on the political empowerment of Latinos in California.

Dr. Guerra has also served as a source for the mass media. He has been quoted in approximately 500 news stories by over twenty publications including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, La Opinión, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Newsweek, Business Week, The Economist and media outlets in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. He has appeared on CNN, NBC’s Today Show, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, Fox National News and numerous local television news/public affairs shows, including Life and Times, where he also served as an occasional co-host.

Dr. Guerra serves as a Gubernatorial appointee to the California Historical Resources Commission and previously served on the Blue Ribbon Committee on the Marine Life Protection Act. Locally, he served as a Mayoral appointee to the Board of Transportation Commission and on the Board of Rent Adjustment Commission for the City of Los Angeles. He served on the Racial Harmony and Ethnic Discourse Committee for a “Rebuild L.A.” Task Force and on advisory committees for community and governmental organizations such as the Air Quality Management District’s Ethnic Community Advisory Committee and a similar committee for the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. He was also selected as a stakeholder for the Latino community in the State’s Growth Management Consensus Project. Dr. Guerra has served as a board member of various non-profit organizations in Los Angeles and has been an active member of professional organizations, such as the American Political Science Association, the Western Political Science Association, and the National Association for Chicano Studies. He has served on the Executive Council of the WPSA and the Executive Council of the Urban Section of the APSA as well as serving on other APSA committees. Dr. Guerra has delivered public lectures at Harvard University, Stanford University, U.C. Berkeley, USC, UCLA and other universities.

Dr. Guerra is married to Kathleen Guerra (Greene) and they have three children, Adam Carlos, Steven Javier, and Emily Joyce.
fguerra@lmu.edu



Matt A. Barreto, Ph.D.
Research Scholar and Statistician



Dr. Barreto has been a research scholar with The Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles since 2002 and is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington. His primary area of research expertise is Latino political participation and he has published numerous academic articles on Latino voting patterns, urban politics, and political behavior. In 2002 Dr. Barreto collaborated with Drs. Mara Marks and Nathan Woods on research concerning race relations in Los Angeles 10 years after the Rodney King riots, and their research article was published in the Urban Affairs Review. Dr. Barreto’s work on voting and elections has resulted in several interesting research projects conducted by the Center, including the precinct quality assessment, the 2003 absentee voter survey, and the 2005 Los Angeles Mayoral exit poll. Dr. Barreto has published several articles including, “The Effect of Latino Candidates on Latino and non-Latino Voters: New Evidence from Five Mayoral Elections,” in the American Political Science Review. He also published, “Latino Immigrants at the Polls: Foreign-born Voter Turnout in the 2002 Election,” for the Political Research Quarterly. Dr. Barreto received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine.
mbarreto@uci.edu



Nathan Woods, Ph.D.
Research Scholar and Statistician




Nathan D.Woods is an economist with Welch Consulting, a consulting firm specializing in labor economics and statistical analysis. He has a Ph.D. in political science from the Claremont Graduate University’s School of Politics and Economics. His published research concerns the
application of statistics to answering questions surrounding political representation, public opinion, and participation. His research is published in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, the American Review of Politics, and the Urban Affairs Review. He serves currently as a research scholar with the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University and an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Southern California.
nwoods@welchon.com



Stephen Nuno, Ph.D. 
Research Scholar



Prior to joining the Leavey Center in December 2006 as Research Associate, Dr. Nuno was Research Consultant and Scholar with the Leavey Center for almost two years. He was co-researcher and project director for the Center’s 2005 Los Angeles Mayoral Election Exit Poll, participated in the development of the Latino Coalition’s surveys, was co-researcher on the 2006 New American Exit Poll in Los Angeles (a three-city project between academic institutions and community organizations) and conducted secondary analyses using Center data. As Research Associate, Dr. Nuno conducted data analyses using Center data, and collaborated with other colleagues, to write peer-reviewed published articles. He is co-researcher for the Center’s Los Angels Riots: A 15 Year Retrospective and Leadership Initiative projects. Dr. Nuno has served as a private consultant on several research projects focusing on Latino political behavior for several organizations. Dr. Nuno is currently an assistant professor in political science at Northern Arizona University.
stephenanuno@gmail.com




David R. Ayón
Senior Research Associate



Ayón is U.S. Director of the binational ‘Focus Mexico/Enfoque México' project at the Center. This project, in collaboration with three other universities, is studying the political relationships of leaders of Mexican origin in the United States with Mexico. This study is the first of a planned series of projects at the Center on Los Angeles as a 'global city-region' and its reciprocal relations with the world. Ayón, formerly associate director of the California-Mexico Project at the USC School of International Relations, is a contributor to books and publications including the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States (2005); the journal Foreign Affairs en Español (which he also serves on its editorial board); México en el Mundo, an annual review of Mexico’s foreign relations; The American Prospect; and has contributed numerous essays to the op-ed and Sunday Opinion pages of the Los Angeles Times since 1983, when he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies of UC San Diego. Educated at Princeton, Stanford and El Colegio de Mexico, Ayón has taught courses on politics and U.S.-Latin American relations at six colleges and universities, including two campuses of the University of California, Stanford, USC and LMU. Ayón has also worked as analyst, consultant, and special producer for Spanish language television news during nine electoral cycles in the U.S. and three in Mexico since 1992. He is currently writing a book on the Vicente Fox presidency that focuses on Fox’s efforts to reform Mexico and transform the NAFTA relationship with the U.S. and Canada into a ‘North American Community.’ david.r.ayon@mac.com



Brianne Barclay
Research Associate
Brianne Barclay is LCSLA’s new Research Associate. Before joining LCSLA in June 2008, Brianne completed her Master’s degree and Ph.D. coursework in Comparative Sociology at Florida International University (FIU).  While at FIU, Brianne provided research and statistical consultation to non-profit organizations and university departments, and undergraduate and graduate students. She was an Adjunct Instructor and Teaching Assistant for research, statistics and social science courses, and also became a SPSS Instructional Trainer and expert in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Brianne’s on-line introductory sociology class (a first for FIU) was selected for national review by the Monterey Institute’s On-Line Education Evaluation Project.  This summer Brianne’s undergraduate sociology honors thesis was published as a book, Statistics in the Social Sciences: Inferential Statistics as Rhetoric in Sociology, by VDM Verlag Dr Muller Press. In 2005 she and her co-authors’ paper, “Community Knowledge and Attitudes toward Refugees and Asylees in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties: An Analysis for International Rescue Committee” won second place in the National Association of Practicing Anthropologists (NAPA) Student Paper Competition, and in 2007 was published in their journal, NAPA Bulletin.  In addition to working on LCSLA’s research projects and educational programs, Brianne is spending her time learning how “going green” can create a sustainable quality of life in Los Angeles. Brianne holds a B.A. from Wittenberg University and is a member of the American Sociological Association, Alpha Kappa Delta International Sociology Honor Society and Phi Beta Kappa.      
brianne.barclay@lmu.edu