Professor Lourdes Gouveia, Ph.D., University of Kansas, examines the role that immigrants have played, and continue to play, in the social, economic and cultural development of Nebraska and its diverse communities. She considers the impacts of immigration policy, and the roles of specific sets of governmental, business and community actors in the shaping and reshaping of immigrant Nebraska, then and now.

Gouveia specializes in Migration and Latin American development. In 2003, she co-founded the Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, which she directed until August of 2015. She is currently Professor Emerita of Sociology at the same university where she teaches for a graduate concentration on Migration, Development and Citizenship, which she created. Her current work focuses on a entirely different migrant stream, the growing exodus of middle-class, highly educated, Venezuelans. The work is situated within the context of increasing global precarity of unskilled and skilled labor alike, and the compounded impacts of Latin America’s failed development and governance models.

Lectures are streamed live online at http://heuermannlectures.unl.edu, and aired live on UNL campus and state cable channel 4.