María Cervantes-Macías is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Migration Studies and an Affiliate Member of the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia. Her research explores how migration and digital labour are transforming Canadian cities, focusing on the everyday experiences of immigrant workers in the platform economy. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the U.S.–Mexico Center at the University of California, San Diego, and a former Fox International Fellow at Yale University (2022-2023). Through her work, María examines how borders, technology, and inequality shape who gets to move, work, and belong across North America.

I completed my PhD in Geography at the University of British Columbia, where my dissertation, Credentialized Aspirations: The Mobility Journeys of Mexican Professionals in North America, examined how education and migration intersect to shape mobility strategies among Mexican professionals in Canada and the United States. My research sits at the intersection of migration, labour, and urban geography. Broadly, I’m interested in how global migration regimes and digital labour markets reshape cities, producing new forms of inequality and belonging. I approach these questions through ethnographic methods, with a focus on North American regional integration. In my postdoctoral project, I am expanding my research beyond Mexican migration, but I am still mostly drawn to the intersections of merit, class, and international mobility.

Cervantes-Macías, M (2025). Producing the highly skilled migrant: the mobility journeys of Mexican professionals in North America. Population, Space and Place. doi: 10.1002/psp.70142

Marcucci, S., Verhulst, S., & Cervantes, M. E. (2025). When forecasting and foresight meet data and innovation: toward a taxonomy of anticipatory methods for migration policy. Data & Policy, 7, e24.

Cervantes-Macías, M. & Delaise, A.C. (2024). Temporal Trajectories: A Comparative Analysis of Mexican and Vietnamese Students’ Strategies in the Canadian Edugration System. Comparative and International Education.

Cervantes-Macías, M. (2022). Migration Data Collection and Management in a Changing Latin American Landscape. Data & Policy, 4, E40. doi:10.1017/dap.2022.34

Best Dissertation Award of the Economic Geographies Specialty Group at the American Association of Geographers in Detroit 2025