Dr. José Higuera López is the Director of the CUNY Mexican Studies Institute at Lehman College (CUNY MSI). Originally from Tijuana, Mexico, he holds a B.A. in English Language Teaching, an M.A. in Education, and a Ph.D. in Educational Management and Policy. In 2006, he was awarded the Fulbright-García Robles Scholarship at the University of Arkansas, and in 2023, he was honored by the Autonomous University of Baja California with the Meritus Award in Education Sciences and Humanities for outstanding alumni. Since 2016, he has raised over $12 million to advance CUNY MSI’s initiatives benefiting thousands of New Yorkers. In 2019, he founded the New York City International Book Fair (FILNYC), an initiative that aims to elevate the presence of the Spanish language through literature and culture. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor at Lehman College, where he has taught courses such as The Teaching Profession in Historical, Political, and Sociocultural Contexts; Multilingualism in the Classroom; Methodology for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages; and Introduction to Fundraising and Development.