Kelly Lytle Hernandez

Kelly Lytle Hernández is a historian and professor at UCLA holding The Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History, and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies. One of the nation's leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of award-winning books including Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (2010), City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (2017), and Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (2022). She was named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow and leads the Million Dollar Hoods research initiative mapping the fiscal and human costs of mass incarceration in Los Angeles.