David Shirk

Principal Investigator, Justice in Mexico Project

Dr. Shirk is an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department and the Principal Investigator for the Justice in Mexico Project. Dr. Shirk conducts research and publishes on topics related to Mexican politics, U.S.-Mexican relations, and law enforcement and security issues along the U.S.-Mexican border. Dr. Shirk was a fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies from 1998-99 and 2001-2003, and a the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2009-10. From 2003-12, he served as director of the Trans-Border Institute at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies.  His recent publications include: Armed with Impunity: Curbing Military Human Rights Abuses in Mexico, co-authored with Catherine Daly and Kimberly Heinle (San Diego, CA: Trans-Border Institute, 2012); La Reforma Judicial en México, ed. with Octavio Rodriguez (San Diego, CA: Trans-Border Institute, 2012); Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011, co-authored with Octavio Rodríguez and Viridiana Ríos. (San Diego, CA: Trans-Border Institute, 2012); “States, Borders, and Violence: Lessons from the U.S.-Mexican Experience,” in Wil G. Pansters (ed.) Violence, Coercion, and State-making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the Centaur. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012) Contemporary Mexican Politics, (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2011), Co-authored with Emily Edmonds-Poli; “Judicial Reform in Mexico: Change and Challenges in the Judicial Sector,” in Mexican Law Review, Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas, Volume IV, Number 1. (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2011); “National and Public Security in Mexico,” in Roderic Ai Camp (ed.) The Handbook of Mexican Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Justiciabarómetro: Resultados de la encuesta a la policia municipal preventiva de la Zona Metropolitana de Guadalajara (2009) co-authored with Marcos Pablo Moloeznik and María Eugenia Suárez de Garay;  Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007) edited with Wayne Cornelius; Evaluating Accountability and Transparency in Mexico: National, Local, and Comparative Perspectives (Trans-Border Institute, 2007) edited with Alejandra Ríos Cásares.

Email: dshirk@sandiego.edu

Phone: (619) 260-2315

Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira

Coordinator, Justice in Mexico Project

Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira is the Coordinator of the Justice in Mexico Project and the Coordinator of the Security and Rule of Law Program at the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute (TBI). He received his law degree at the School of Law at the Universidad Panamericana in Aguascalientes and has has studies Mexican Law Procedure and Human Rights at Universidad Panamericana and Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, respectively. He is currently a doctoral candidate at Universidad Panamericana. He has worked as Chief of the Public Law Academy and full-time professor at Universidad Panamericana and as a Legal Advisor for Governmental Offices in Mexico regarding human rights and agrarian law. He publishes in electronic and print publications and gives comments regularly to national and international media outlets. He has authored several studies on Mexican policing, security and rule of law, and is co-editor of the book regarding the reform to the criminal justice system in Mexico: La reforma al sistema de justicia penal en México, ed. with David Shirk (San Diego: Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego, 2012).

Email: orodriguez@sandiego.edu 
Phone: (619) 260-2299

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Kimberly Heinle

Editor, Justice in Mexico Project

Operations Coordinator, Trans-Border Institute

Kimberly is the operations coordinator for the Trans-Border Institute and the editor of the Justice in Mexico Project. In 2011, she graduated from the University of San Diego with her Master’s in International Relations, and prior to that, she received her Bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Ithaca College in 2008. As part of her graduate school studies, she participated in the joint capstone research project between the National Defense Intelligence College and the University of San Diego, where she conducted research in Mexico and traveled to Washington, D.C. to present her research on human rights abuses in Mexico’s unfolding security situation.

Email: kheinle@sandiego.edu
Phone: (619) 260-4148