In September, Dr. Leniqueca Welcome joined the Center for Urban and Global Studies (CUGS) as the Assistant Professor for Urban and International Studies. Leniqueca brings skills and experience with experimental ethnography and the processes of urban racialization and criminalization research to the center. Learn more about Leniqueca in this blog.

Leniqueca Welcome, Assistant Professor of Urban and International Studies, Center for Urban and Global Studies
1. Where are you coming to Trinity from and what have you been working on the past few years?

I recently graduated with my Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in August 2021. Prior to starting my Ph.D. I worked as an architect in Trinidad where I am from.

2. What do you work on in your research?

In my research I explore the processes by which urban geographies and the people within them are criminalized, the effects of state violence, and political projects of liberation.

3. What are you most looking forward to while working at Trinity College?

Working and learning with the students. They really energize me and push my thinking further.

4. What motivates you and gives you passion?

The communities I am invested in, and other scholars and organizers involved in imagining and forging a better world.

5. Where is your favorite place in the world?

My mother’s kitchen. She is an amazing cook and I love eating so it is honestly one of my favorite places.

6. Who is your favorite designer, artist, or author and why?

This is such a hard question. I can’t pick a favorite, but one author in my top three is Edwidge Danticat. I aspire to her ability to render really difficult and heavy narratives with such complexity, care, and beauty. An artist whose work I am really into right now is Suchitra Mattai. She does these cool mixed media collages.