Ileana M. Rodríguez-Silva is an associate professor of Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Washington-Seattle. She graduated magna cum laude from the Universidad de Puerto Rico - Río Piedras with a B.A. in History. She holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies and another in Latin American History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where Rodríguez also completed a History Ph.D. in 2004. Rodríguez-Silva's research focuses on race-making in the Americas, racial identity formation, post-emancipation racial politics, and comparative colonial arrangements in the configuration of empires.