Glenda Mejia

Glenda is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies and Advisory Council Member of SEEDS (https://www.seedsforchange.ca/advisorycouncil).

These days, Glenda lives, moves, un-learns, works, and breathes on the traditional lands of the Kulin Nations. She is an educator, scholar, mum, daughter, sister, aunt and amiga. She uses the pronouns she/her/hers/ella. She was born in the ancestral lands of Náhuat people, known as El Salvador.

Glenda completed her PhD at The University of Queensland, Brisbane. She currently teaches in the field of migration/mobility/displacement entangled with memory, and the Spanish language & cultural studies at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, recognising the university as a colonised space and unceded sovereignty of the Traditional Custodians of the Kulin Nations. She extends that respect to Elders past, present and emerging as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples throughout Australia.

As an educator and a scholar, Glenda is committed to un-/re-/learning, teaching and re-me-we-searching by applying a praxis of art-based and community-based approaches, senti-pensando and liberation pedagogies. Her ethics, teaching, being and working are inspired by her ancestors, by bell hook, by Clelia O. Rodríguez, by Gloria Anzaldúa and by Vanessa Andreotti.

Her publications cover topics on experiences and memories of Latin American (im)migrants in Australia (e.g., identity, belonging, place-making and intersectionality).

Grants and awards
2024–2025: Creative Australia Grant. Salvadoran displacement: an illustrated bilingual e-publication
2024: Adobe x Creative Curriculum Grant, Diversity, and Inclusion in a digital Spanish book
2014: Award for Teaching Excellence, Higher Education (College of Design and Social Context)
2014–2015: DEEWR Study Overseas Short Term Mobility to La Salle University, Mexico
2011: DEEWR Study Overseas Short Term Mobility Program Study to Javariana University, Colombia
2009: Transition Funding, RMIT University. Aim: to develop listening material for various levels of Spanish
2007: Transition Funding, RMIT University. Aim: to develop a course for the students to prepare for the Spanish Proficiency Test (DELE)
2003: Graduate School Research Travel Award, The University of Queensland, St Lucia campus
2002: Philology Scholarship, Department of Romance Languages, The University of Queensland, St Lucia campus
2002: Nominated for Dean's List Most Effective Teacher Award, The University of Queensland, St Lucia campus