Dr. Patricia Escamilla-Hamm specializes in US-Mexico security and defense cooperation and the combat of transnational organized crime. She is a scholar and independent consultant and former Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (WJPC, National Defense University) in Washington, DC. As a subject matter expert at WJPC, she was responsible for briefing officials from the US Department of Defense (DOD) and other departments, as well as from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Dr. Escamilla conducts research and frequently lectures at academic and government institutions and other fora. She taught at the University of California at Irvine (UCI), and was assistant professor at Iowa State University (ISU) and El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Colef, Tijuana, Mexico). Dr. Escamilla has produced policy research for the DOD and provided consultancy for the Organization of American States (OAS) and Mexican and bi-national government institutions.
Among her publications are “US War on Organized Crime,” “Mexico’s Security Policies at its Northern Border,” and “Trump's Wall is Unlikely to Make America's Border Safer from Illicit Flows.” Dr. Escamilla has a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California; M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Dr. Escamilla-Hamm was born and raised in Mexico City, but did her academic career in the US.