SPS Stories
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A Proud NYU SPS Alum Turned Passionate Advocate
Fast Facts
- Earned an MS in Global Affairs in 2023
- Now works for the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project
- Credits their experience with the NYU LGBTQ+ Center as a student as essential professional preparation
<p><span class="p-body">Lermxn Montoya earned an MS in Global Affairs from NYU SPS in 2023, with a concentration in Peacebuilding. Montoya currently works as a community organizing coordinator at The Queer Detainee Empowerment Project—and they credit their time at SPS as an essential and formative stop on their journey to finding their place in the world.</span></p>
Belief in Vision and Values
<p><span class="p-body">In their role with the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, Montoya is responsible for aligning issue campaigns, movement politics, and leadership training with QDEP's mission, vision and core values."</span></p>
<p><span class="p-body">My responsibilities include strengthening the membership base, grassroots community organizing, coalition building with other abolitionist and immigrant rights groups, centering power-building, abolition, and liberation from structural racism and the carceral state," shared Montoya. "I am also responsible for training and co-facilitating a leadership development program for BIPOC, Trans, Queer, and Cis-Gender Women, and Gender Non-Conforming Immigrants."</span></p>
The Freedom to Pursue a Passion
<p><span class="p-body">Montoya credits their time at NYU as formative in preparing the<span class="p-body"></span>m for this role. "My work at the NYU LGBTQ+ Center allowed me to develop my facilitation skills and further my work with Queer and Trans community members of color," they explained. </span></p>
The Center for Global Affairs gave me the space to delve deeper into the issues of LGBTQ+ migration and displacement. Through mentorship and research opportunities, I was encouraged to interrogate systems of oppression that affect LGBTQ+ people globally and work towards finding community-driven solutions to sexual and gender-based violence."
<p><span class="p-body">For their graduate capstone project, Montoya worked on a multimedia project centering the dynamics of queer and trans migration between and along the borderland regions of Mexico (US–Mexico and Mexico–Guatemala) that have been socially, politically, and economically constructed and disrupted by the United States' foreign policy and anti-immigrant agenda.</span></p>
Years of Memories, a Lifetime Legacy
<p><span class="p-body">When asked about their time at NYU SPS, Montoya is quick to beam with gratitude. "I am proud to be a CGA alum because I am part of a cohort of students who see the world critically and are not afraid to think of creative and human-centered solutions to the world's most pressing issues," they shared, before recalling a critical memory.</span></p>
<p><span class="p-body">"My favorite memory of my time at CGA was participating in PREP's research in Colombia. I had the opportunity to collaborate with Colombian researchers from La Escuela Superior de Administración Publica on a research project that centered the political and social impact of Indigenous, LGBTQ+, Black, and rural social leaders, activists, environmentalists, and survivors of the armed conflict, amidst alarming rates of assassinations of human rights defenders," they shared.</span></p>
<p><span class="p-body">Montoya reportedly left Colombia inspired by the resilience of NYU's research partners and all the people they met throughout their time in Colombia.</span></p>
<p><span class="p-body">An <a href="/content/sps-nyu/explore/degrees-and-programs/ms-in-global-affairs.html" title="Master's in Global Affairs">MS in Global Affairs</a> from NYU SPS can open doors that you may have never imagined were possible. See where you can start the next chapter of your career with a degree from the Center for Global Affairs.</span></p>
