Headshot Melissa Villa Nichols

Melissa Villa Nicholas

W: https://www.melissavillanicholas.net/

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Curriculum Vitae

Melissa Villa Nicholas

Assistant Professor

Dr. Melissa Villa Nicholas is an assistant professor at UCLA’s Department of Information Studies. Her first book, Latinas on the Line: Invisible Information Workers in Telecommunications (Rutgers Press), received an honorable mention from the Labor Tech Network book award for 2022. Her second book, Data Borders: How Silicon Valley is Building an Industry Around Immigrants, was released with UC Press and received the McGannon Center Book Award from Fordham University. Melissa has received numerous awards, including the Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Awards at the University of Rhode Island, the Library Juice Press Paper Contest for her work on information and incarceration, and the Gender and Women’s Studies Smalley Fellowship for the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She is an affiliate of the Chicano Studies Research Center and DataX’s Data Justice and Critical Data Studies. Melissa has her Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

Departments

Programs

Interests

Expertise

Research Centers

Titles and Positions

  • Assistant Professor

Awards, Honors and Fellowships

  • McGannon Center Book Award, Fordham University, 2023
  • Honorable Mention, Labor Tech Network Book Award, 2022
  • Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Awards, URI, 2021
  • Library Juice Press Paper Contest, 2020
  • Gender and Women’s Studies Smalley Fellowship, UIUC, 2015
  • I3 Schools PhD Teaching Fellow, University of Pittsburgh, 2014
  • REFORMA Scholar, 2011
  • Diane Hopkins Award, UW Madison, 2011
  • Advanced Opportunity Fellowship at UW Madison, 2010-2011

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016.
    Primary Field: Information Science
    Minor Field: Queer Theory
  • M.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2012.
    Primary Field: Library and Information Studies
  • M.A., Claremont Graduate University, 2010.
    Primary Field: Cultural Studies

Select Publications

  • Data Borders: How Silicon Valley is Building an Industry from Immigrant Data. (2023). UC Press. https://www.ucpress.edu/books/data-borders/paper
  • Latinas on the Line: Invisible Labor in Telecommunications. (2022). Rutgers Press.
    https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/latinas-on-the-line/9781978813717/
  • Sweeney, M., and Villa-Nicholas, M. (2022). “Digitizing the Latina Information Worker.” American Quarterly. 74.1.
  • Villa-Nicholas, M. (2019) “Latinx Digital Memory: Identity Making in Real Time.” Social Media and Society. 5.4.
  • Austin, J. and Villa-Nicholas, M. (August 2019) “Information Provision and the Carceral State: Race and Reference Beyond the Idea of the ‘Underserved.’” The Reference Librarian. 60.4
  • Velez, L. and Villa-Nicholas, M. (Spring 2017) “Mapping Race and Racism in U.S. Library History Literature, 1997-2015.” Library Trends. 65.4
  • Villa-Nicholas, M. (Spring 2017) “Ruptures in Telecommunications: Latina and Latino Information Workers in Southern California.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies. 42.1
  • Villa-Nicholas, M. (Fall 2015) “Latina/o Librarian Technological Engagements: REFORMA in the Digital Age.” Latino Studies. 13.4
  • Villa-Nicholas, M. (March 2016). “The Invisible Information Worker: Latinas in Telecommunications.” In The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture Online, edited by Safiya Noble and Brendesha Tynes. Peter Lang Digital Editions Series.