Aurora Vergara Figueroa is the director of the Afrodiasporic Studies Center (Centro de Estudios Afrodiaspóricos) at Icesi University. Her main research interest is the sociological study of Afrocolombians deracinated from the Colombian Pacific coast and the long durée of land dispossession. Vergara Figueroa also develops research on the Afrodiasporic feminist movement in Colombia. She is the recipient of the 2014 LASA/Oxfam America Martin Diskin Dissertation Award. Vergara Figueroa holds a PhD fin sociology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.