Loyola Marymount University is a top-ranked national university by U.S. News and World Report, which places LMU among the top six Jesuit universities in the country and in the top six private universities in California. Founded in 1911, LMU is a Catholic, Jesuit, and Marymount university with more than 7,100 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate and law students. LMU offers 56 undergraduate majors and 56 minor programs, along with 46 master’s degree programs, three doctorate programs and 12 credential/authorization programs. LMU’s intercollegiate athletics teams compete in the West Coast Conference with 14 Division I varsity sports.

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Professor Finkel, who received her PhD from UCLA, researches political institutions, democracy, and human rights in Latin America. Her current work examines how high courts in Latin America are defining prior consultation (the right of indigenous peoples to participate in decision making that affects their communities) in the 21st century. Her book, Judicial Reform as Political Insurance: Argentina, Peru, and Mexico in the 1990s, was published with University of Notre Dame Press and she has articles on supreme courts and judicial reform in the three premier Latin American journals (LARR, JLAS, and LAPS). In addition, Professor Finkel was selected to contribute two chapters for edited volumes published by Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice (2017, 2018). She has an article on Mexico’s Ombudsman’s Office (CNDH) in Human Right Review (2012) and another, on starting an NGO with students, in PS: Political Science and Politics (2014). Another article, “Prior Consultation in Latin America the 21st Century: International Conventions, Judicial Interpretations from Andean Constitutional Courts, and Lessons for Ensuring the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” is forthcoming with the ITESO Guadalajara. 


Professor Finkel teaches courses on comparative politics/democratization, human rights, modern slavery, food justice, and Latin American politics.


Professor Finkel is a founder and President of MuJER Guatemala, an empowerment organization that works to promote the rights and well-being of sex workers in Guatemala City, which she started with two LMU undergraduates in 2005.


National and University Awards:

*She Who Inspires: Women Who Change the World, UCSD (for founding MuJER Guatemala), 2019

*Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell Award for Mentoring Latino/as, American Political Science Association, 2016

*Visionary Leader Award, UCSD’s 50 Year Jubilee, (50 people chosen from 130,000 alumni), 2011

*Honorable Mention, Museum of Latino Art, American Hybridity Show, “Viva Zapato,” 2011

*LMU Fritz B. Burns Distinguished Teaching Award, 2009

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