Kelly Lytle-Hernández
Kelly Lytle Hernández is a professor of History, African American Studies, and Urban Planning at UCLA where she holds The Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History. She is also the Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. Currently, Professor Lytle Hernández is the Director and Principal Investigator for Million Dollar Hoods, a university-based, community-driven research project that maps the fiscal and human cost of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. In 2018, Lytle Hernández served as a panelist for the Latinx Communities, Race, and the Criminal Justice System Symposium, co-sponsored by LPPI.
One of the nation’s leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of the award-winning books, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010), and City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). City of Inmates recently won the 2018 James Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians, 2018 Athearn Prize from the Western Historical Association, the 2018 John Hope Franklin Book Prize from the American Studies Association, and the 2018 American Book Award.
The Million Dollar Hoods team won a 2018 Freedom Now! Award from the Los Angeles Community Action Network. For her leadership on the Million Dollar Hoods team, Professor Lytle Hernández was awarded the 2018 Local Hero Award from KCET/PBS and the 2019 Catalyst Award from the South L.A. parent/student advocacy organization, CADRE. In 2019, Professor Lytle Hernandez was named a James D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow for her historical and contemporary work.
