Héctor Carrillo

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Héctor Carrillo is an associate professor of sociology and gender studies at Northwestern University. His research focuses on the sociology of sexuality, with particular emphases on the formation of sexual identities and the intersections between sexuality, international migration, and health. His earlier research examined Mexican urban sexual cultures and their implications for HIV prevention.

At Radcliffe, Carrillo will write a book on the topic of “sexual migration” that is based on the results of an ethnographic study of gay male Mexican migrants who relocated to the United States for reasons related to their sexuality. The book will trace gay migrants’ sexual socialization in Mexico, their motivations for leaving, and their incorporation into US gay communities. The book will also analyze how migration affects their sexuality and HIV risk. Carrillo’s work will fill gaps in our understanding of transnational mobility, the formation of local gay communities, and global sexual cultures.

Carrillo did his undergraduate work at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City and received a doctoral degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley. Before moving to Northwestern University, in 2009, he held faculty positions at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California, San Francisco and in the Department of Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University. His first book, The Night Is Young: Sexuality in Mexico in the Time of AIDS (University of Chicago Press, 2002), received the Ruth Benedict Prize from the American Anthropological Association.