Natalie Santizo, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Office: AL-359
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Natalie Santizo is an interdisciplinary historian concerned with understanding how foodways—the production, consumption, and distribution of foods and food entrepreneurs over time—have shaped Latinx placemaking and survival in Southern California. Her research interests include suburban history, critical food studies, racial geographies, and public history. Her first book project, Mexican Foodways in the SGV, pieces together a social and cultural history of 20th century Mexican American communities in the San Gabriel Valley. Dr. Santizo was recently awarded a $300,000 grant for the project Unearthing the Chicana/o Movement in San Diego: Digitizing the Education Movimiento. She will lead a three-year digitization project alongside archivist Erika Esquivel.
Prior to beginning her position at SDSU, she served as a UC Presidents Postdoc Fellow under the History department at the University of California, Merced. Dr. Santizo earned her Ph.D. in Chicana/o and Central American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. She earned her B.A.s in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Southern California.