Emmanuel Ortega (PhD, Art History, University of New Mexico) is the Marilynn Thoma Scholar and Assistant Professor in Art of the Spanish Americas at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a  Newberry Library Fellow 2025-2026. His book project, Visualizing Franciscan Anxiety and the Distortion of Native Resistance: The Domesticating Mission is under contract with Routledge. He is also a recurrent lecturer for Arquetopia Foundation for Development, the largest artist residency in México.

Dr. Ortega will give a lecture entitled Sermon to the Birds: Franciscan Visual Culture and Colonial Mediation in the Chichimec Frontier during his visit.