Alejandro Velasco is an assistant professor of Latin American history in the Gallatin School at New York University whose research and teaching interests are in the areas of social movements, urban culture, and democratization. Before joining the Gallatin faculty, he taught at Hampshire College, where he was a Five College Fellow, and at Duke University. Mr. Velasco's teaching record includes interdisciplinary courses on contemporary Latin America (including seminars on human rights, cultural studies, and urban social movements), historical methods courses on 20th-century revolutions, graduate history courses on urban political history, and workshops with primary and secondary school educators. His most recent book, Barrio Rising, offers an in-depth history of Venezuela's urban political politics in the second half of the twentieth century and will be published by University of California Press in July 2015. Mr. Velasco received his B.A. in History and Communications from Boston College and earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Duke University.