Rate My Professor Anna Rose Alexander

Anna Rose Alexander, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of History at California State University, East Bay, where she has been a faculty member since 2016. A first-generation scholar and award-winning teacher, she earned her B.A. in History from California State University, Chico in 2006, M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Arizona in 2008, and Ph.D. in History from the University of Arizona in 2012. Before joining CSUEB, she taught Latin American history at the University of British Columbia, as well as universities in Alabama and Georgia, where she received the Award of Distinction in Teaching from the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Georgia Southern University in 2015.

Alexander specializes in Mexican, Latin American, environmental, urban, and public history, focusing on the intersections of technology, risk, and social change. Her monograph City on Fire: Technology, Social Change, and the Hazards of Progress in Mexico City, 1860–1910 was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2016. She co-edited the fifth edition of Problems in Modern Latin American History: Sources and Interpretations (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) and the sixth edition (Bloomsbury, 2026). Currently, she is working on a second monograph about the 1984 San Juan Ixhuatepec petroleum explosion, addressing environmental history, restorative justice, and corporate negligence. Key articles include “Safety by Design: Engineers and Entrepreneurs Invent Fire Safety in Mexico City, 1860-1910” (Urban History, 2014), “Incendiary Legislation: Fire Protection and Risk in Porfirian Puebla” (Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, 2013), and “One Fire, Two Songs: Óscar Chávez and El Tri Sing about the 1984 San Juanico Fire” (The Latin Americanist, 2020). In 2021, she was awarded the Faculty Excellence Award by CSUEB's College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences. She teaches courses on public history, Latin America, and the history of sustainability, and directs the My Housing Story oral history project documenting housing experiences in the San Francisco Bay Area. Alexander also serves on the City of Chico’s Climate Action Commission and boards for Save the El Rey Theater and the Beautiful and Historic Chico Coalition.