Dolores Inés Casillas is Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies and Director of the Chicano Studies Institute (CSI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on immigrant engagement with U.S. Spanish-language and bilingual media, the representation of accented Spanish and English languages within popular culture, as well as the integration of Ethnic Studies within K-12 schools.  She is the author of Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-language Radio and Public Advocacy (NYU Press, 2014), which received two book prizes, and co-editor with María Elena Cepeda (Williams College) of the Companion to Latina/o Media Studies (Routledge Press, 2016) and co-editor with Mary Bucholtz and Jin Sook Lee (UC Santa Barbara) of Feeling It: Language, Race and Affect in Latinx Youth Learning (Routledge Press, 2018).  Sounds of Belonging has been cited in different media venues, such as, the Associated Press, Pacifica Radio, ABC News, Buzzfeed, and National Public Radio (NPR). Her current manuscript explores the politics of language learning and language ply as heard through different media technologies. 

She is also co-convener for the Sound Studies Caucus for the American Studies Association (ASA), Director of the Spanish and Bilingual Radio caucus for the Radio Preservation Task Force hosted by the Library of Congress, and a regular contributor to Sounding Out! A Sound Studies Blog.  She is also a Board Member of Adelante Charter School, the only dual-language (Spanish-English) K-6 elementary school in Santa Barbara, and the Goleta Education Foundation (GEF), a non-profit that engages the community to invest in and enhance the excellent education experiences for all students within the Goleta Union School District.

One of her greatest accomplishments is mentoring Chicana/x students through the doctoral program in Chicana/o Studies at UCSB.  Four of her former mentees are now professors in tenure track positions (California State University, Channel Islands; University of Wisconsin, Madison; Queens College in New York; and Emerson College in Boston) and another, the Associate Director of ÉXITO, an academic-research program supported by aTitle V, Department of Education, Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) grant.