Jason De León is Executive Director of the Undocumented Migration Project, Inc. 501(c)(3)and Head Curator of Hostile Terrain 94. He is Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and Professor of Anthropology and Chicana, Chicano, and Central American Studies at UCLA. He is the author of the award winning books “The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail” (UC Press 2015) and Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling (Viking 2024). De León is a 2017 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and between 2013 and 2017 he co-curated the traveling exhibition “State of Exception.”
Michael Wells has served as primary photographer and artistic adviser for Undocumented Migration Project since its inception in 2009. He has photographed the project’s ethnographic and archaeological fieldwork in Arizona, New York, Mexico, Honduras, and Ecuador. A Los Angeles-based photographer, he has created photography projects on post-Katrina New Orleans, the physicality of the US Mexico border in Arizona and California, and Latino communities in the American South.
Austin Ella Shipman is the Assistant Director for the Undocumented Migration Project. She holds her BA in Sociocultural Anthropology and Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Washington and has been involved in the Undocumented Migration Project since 2010 having assisted with field school efforts in both southern Arizona and Mexico. She is particularly interested in the interaction between urban planning and migration and how cities can be better designed for the displaced.
Nicole Smith is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA with a concentration in archaeology. She holds her BA and MA in Anthropology from the University of Michigan and UCLA, respectively, and has been involved with the Undocumented Migration Project since 2017. Her doctoral research focuses on the relationship among climate change, migration, and heritage in Arizona and Roatán, Honduras. She is particularly interested in human-environment interactions and how heritage is preserved and/or transformed across borders in the wake of increasing natural disasters. As a certified scuba diver, Nicole is also an underwater archaeologist with experience mapping shipwrecks with Diving With a Purpose.
Wanda Quintanilla Duran is a PhD student in the Anthropology Department (socio-cultural) at UCLA and is one of the current Undocumented Migration Project (UMP) graduate students. She holds her BA from Rutgers University, where she majored in Linguistics, Latin American Studies, and Spanish Language and Literature. Some of her research interests are clandestine migration, borders, women and gender, violence, Central America, and intimacy. Her dissertation research examines the role and lives of Honduran women (migrant and guides) as they navigate the process of clandestine migration across Guatemala and Mexico.
Gabriel Silva Collins is a PhD student in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. He holds a BA in Anthropology from Williams College, and has been involved with the Undocumented Migration Project since 2022. His doctoral research examines the material connections between contemporary peoples, living ecosystems, and Inka historical sites in Peru and Bolivia. Gabriel is invested in work that develops Inka archaeology while simultaneously providing resources and information to support current Quechua communities' ongoing relationships with heritage landscapes.
Karla Hernandez is a PhD student in Chicano and Central American Studies at UCLA. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish with an emphasis in cultural studies from UC Riverside. Karla's research focuses on the impact of violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly on women. She is deeply committed to addressing the issue of sexual violence faced by female migrants during their journeys into and out of the United States.
Ruby Taylor is a second year undergraduate student at UCLA studying Anthropology and is from San Luis Obispo, CA. Ruby’s focus is in archaeology and human rights historically to the present.
Xzandalyn Kallstrom is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Anthropology with a minor in Musicology. Xzandalyn’s academic interests lie in the fields of forensic science and archaeology, and she is actively pursuing the development of a thesis focused on the body decomposition process for her future master's degree.
Board of Directors
Elizabeth Hawkins, Legal Chair
Maria Inclan, International Chair
Gina Tan, Fundraising Director and Chair
Julia Wells, Northern California Networking and Membership Advisor
Michael Wells, Creative Director and Chair
For general inquires or more information about the UMP please feel free to contact us below.