Dr. Rodolfo Acosta-Pérez, the Director of Family Empowerment at the Community Action Agency of Southern New Mexico (CAASNM) and former MVEDA intern, has been invited to present his doctoral dissertation at the First World Conference of the Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS). Dr. Acosta-Pérez will travel to Joensuu, Finland and St. Petersburg, Russia in order to present his thesis, entitled “Conspicuous Consumption and Drug-Trafficking in the U.S.- Mexico Border” to an international audience on June 9-13, 2014. Nearly 500 proposals from 64 different countries were submitted to the ABS Committee.
Dr. Acosta-Pérez earned his Doctorate in Economic Development from New Mexico State University (NMSU) in December 2011. He has since presented his dissertation in Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Canada, and at the Annual Leadership Conference of Collaborative Educational Programs for the Americas (CEPA) held last October in San Antonio, Texas. Dr. Acosta-Pérez’s dissertation, which analyzes the extent to which conspicuous consumption fuels drug trafficking and examines the micro and macro impacts of both phenomena on economic development, has received high accolades from his colleagues at both national and international levels.
“I feel honored to have been invited to present my research at the 1st World ABS Conference,” said Dr. Acosta-Pérez. “I will have the opportunity to discuss the extent to which drug-trafficking affects social and economic development across the U.S. – Mexico border. More importantly, spending time with seasoned professors and professionals from different cultures will have a long-lasting impact on my personal and professional life.”
CEPA, a Non-Profit Public Benefit Charitable Organization, is currently accepting donations to assist Dr. Acosta-Pérez with his travel expenses. Donations are tax deductible, and can be made online via PayPal at http://www.cepa2000.org/cepa_2012_registration.html, or by checks made payable to CEPA and mailed to 4443 Maricopa Circle, Las Cruces NM 88011. Donors – please notify Dr. Rodolfo Acosta-Pérez that a donation was made on his behalf at acostar@caasnm.org or 575-527-8799, Ext. 136.
