Gabriela Medina Falzone
An assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic, Gender, and Queer Studies, Dr. Gabby Medina Falzone is a queer, multi-ethnic boricua. She is an interdisciplinary critical youth studies scholar, drawing from fields such as social epidemiology, adolescent development, psychology, and criminology. In addition to her faculty role, she is the director of Chico State’s Project Rebound, a student success program for students who have been incarcerated.
She received her BA in Psychology from San Francisco State, her MA in Public Health from UC Berkeley, and her PhD in Critical Studies of Race, Class, and Gender from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. Before coming to Chico State, she worked as a postdoctoral scholar for the Penn State University Restorative Justice Initiative, developing student supports for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated college students.
She is passionate about supporting students from historically oppressed communities, including teaching ethnic studies students how to conduct culturally relevant research, and developing recruitment and retention supports for justice-impacted students.
Dr. Medina Falzone’s previous research examined the criminalization, dehumanization, and disregard of Black and Latinx adolescents in schools and communities, and the social and psychological consequences of that treatment.
Her current work challenges the presumed benefits of carceral care for BIPOC youth psycho-social wellbeing. Carceral care refers to the idea that the juvenile justice system and other related systems, such as child welfare, are well-suited to support youth who are experiencing adversity.
Courses taught
· AFAM 170 Introduction to Black/African American Studies
· CHLX 157 Introduction to Latinx Studies
· CHLX 415 Latinx and Immigration
· MCGS/ETHN 146 Racial Inequities in K-12 Education
· MCGS 155 Introduction to Multicultural and Gender Studies
· MCGS 300H/HNRS 300 Honors Ethnic Studies Methodologies
· MCGS/ETHN 350: Intersectionality and Social Justice
Publications
Medina Falzone, G. (2022). Case Studies in Social Death: The Criminalization and Dehumanization of Six Black and Latino Boys. The Urban Review, 54(2), 233-254.
Medina Falzone, G. (2026). Rethinking adversity: challenging criminogenic narratives and carceral solutions to adolescent stress and trauma. In Gaby, S. & Magnus, A. (Eds) Disrupting the Nexus of Neoliberalism and Carceral Reach: Pursuing Contemporary Social Change. Bloomsbury.