Faculty Profile for Dr. Lori Lee Gallegos de Castillo

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Lori is from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her Ph.D. in philosophy and a graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from Stony Brook University (SUNY) in 2016. Prior to attending graduate school, she worked as a case manager in family-based immigration law in Albuquerque. She earned her B.A. in philosophy and foreign languages from the University of New Mexico in 2008.

Teaching Interests

Lori teaches a range of courses, including Philosophy of Emotion, Latin American Philosophy, Moral Psychology, Feminist Theory, Ethics and Society, graduate Seminar in Ethics, and the graduate Dialogues course (focusing on philosophical methods).

She is co-editor, with Manuel Vargas and Francisco Gallegos, of The Latinx Philosophy Reader, which was published by Routledge in 2025. This volume gathers and situates key texts from an emerging field in a way that is suitable for classroom use.

Research Interests

Lori writes on topics related to emotions and society, Latinx philosophy, and the ethics and politics of immigration.

In her research on emotion, she utilizes methods and theories in philosophy, combined with research findings in psychology, to better understand the ways in which human experience is shaped by the societies that are the source of our emotion concepts and norms. This work often focuses on the experiences of people in Latin American immigrant communities in the U.S.

*Lori has written articles on unconscious ethnic and racial prejudice.
*She has published work on whether empathy contributes to solidarity in cases where injustices are subtle or structural.
*She has authored a chapter about the moral anxiety involved in interpreting for one’s parents––the conflict between living in accordance with one’s own values and desires, and the sense of obligation to amplify a dependent loved one’s agency.
*One of her articles discusses affective injustice and explores the nature of linguistic shame for Latinx people in the U.S. This group includes immigrants who are unable to speak English “well enough,” but also U.S.-born children who are unable to speak Spanish “well enough.”
*She is currently working on a project about the pressure on Latinx people to undergo affective assimilation, or to feel a sense of belonging and identification with mainstream U.S. culture.
*She is also writing about the wounds of guilt, anxiety, and fear within immigrant communities, with the aim of encouraging communities to care about, understand, prevent, and work to heal these wounds.

Lori’s publications have appeared in edited volumes and in journals including Hypatia, Philosophical Topics, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Critical Philosophy of Race, Topoi, and the Inter-American Journal of Philosophy.

Lori serves as the editor of APA Studies on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy.