Dr. Vannessa Falcón Orta

Vannessa Falcón Orta, Ph.D. (she/her/ella)

Assistant Professor, Division of Education, SDSU-Imperial Valley and School of Teacher Education, SDSU College of Education

Vannessa Falcón Orta is Transfronteriza (transborder) from the San Diego-Tijuana borderlands and the daughter of working-class immigrant parents from Mexico and Peru. She graduated from SDSU’s Joint Ph.D. Program in Education (JDP) with Claremont Graduate University. A scholar and organizer dedicated to the social justice of Transfronterizx students, her research, teaching and service center on preparing Critically Conscious Border Educators along the California-Baja California Borderlands. For the past decade, she has implemented innovative initiatives informed by her interdisciplinary research in transborder studies and education centered on the advocacy of Transfronterizx students at the San Diego-Tijuana, Imperial Valley-Mexicali and Douglas-Agua Prieta border regions. In 2022, she founded the Building Bridges Graduation Initiative, the first-ever transborder graduation at the U.S.-Mexico border, providing SDSU graduates whose immediate family members cannot cross the border an opportunity to celebrate graduation with their loved ones in México. In 2023, she was awarded the SDSU Outstanding Transborder Educator Award for work in founding the Building Bridges Graduation Initiative and commitment to the social justice of Transfronterizx students and their families along the California-Baja California Borderlands. Today Vannessa is proud to call the Calexico-Mexicali border region her home. For fun, she enjoys spending time with friends and family, walking with her dog, Chocolate, and dancing tango.

Education

• Ph.D. in Education, Claremont Graduate University/San Diego State University
• M.S. in Counseling, Student Development in Higher Education, CSU Long Beach
• B.A. in Psychology, San Diego State University
• A.A. Transfer Studies, Southwestern Community College 

Publications

Falcón Orta, V., Lorona, I., Gonzalez-Quintero, S., Vasquez, J., Flores Cabrera, K.V., Franco-Ortiz, J.C. (2021). Fostering the success of Transfronterizx students in postsecondary and higher education at the San Diego-Tijuana borderlands. National Association of Bilingual Education: Global Perspectives. Special Issue on Transborder-Binational Education.
 
Falcón Orta, V., & Monk, G. (2020). Creating Change in Higher Education Through Transfronterizx Student-led Grassroots Initiatives in the San Diego-Tijuana Border Region. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 1-20. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08865655.2020.1735480
 
Falcón Orta, V. & Orta Falcón, A. (2018). The Transborder identity formation process: An exploratory grounded theory study of transborder college students from the San Diego-Tijuana Border Region. Journal of Transborder Studies: Research and Practice, 4 (1) 1-26. 
 
Falcón Orta, V., Harris III, F., Leal, U. & Vasquez, M. (2018). An intersectional multicultural approach to advising and counseling Transborder Mexican-American men in the community college. In X. Wagner (Ed.), New Directions for Student Services, 2018 (164), 73-83.  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ss.20285 
 
Urias Vasquez, M., Falcon, V., Harris III, F., & Wood, J.L. (2017).  Narratives of success: A retrospective trajectory analysis of men of color who successfully transferred from the community college. In X. Wang (Ed.), Studying transfer in higher education: New approaches to enduring and emerging. Madison, Wisconsin: New Directions for Institutional Research. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ir.20182 

Courses

• Multilingual Education: Theory and Practices for Biliteracy Teachers (DLE 515)
• U.S.-Mexico International Border (CCS 355)
• Teaching and Learning in the Content Area: Designated and Integrated English Language Development-Single Subject ( (DLE 915B)
• Introduction to Multicultural Education (ED 451)