About CCBRES

CCBRES Staff

Kimberly Collins

Kimberly Collins is an assistant professor in Public Administration and is the Director of the California Center for Border and Regional Economic Studies (CCBRES) at the Imperial Valley campus of San Diego State University. She teaches public administration, including courses on the scope of public administration, public policy, management of urban governments, and city planning.

The mission of CCBRES is to inform public and private decision makers as well as individuals of demographic, economic, environmental, and social trends in the Imperial Valley and the western U.S.-Mexican border region.  As Director of CCBRES, Kimberly oversees each of the research projects at the Center, directs the data collection, edits all publications released by the Center, conducts the general day-to-day operations, and raises the necessary funds to maintain the Center’s activities. 

Her research interests are focused on U.S.-Mexican border policy. Within this region,  Kimberly has been working on issues related to quality of life; urban and rural planning and development; local governance and federalism in the United States and Mexico; environmental policy at the federal, state, and local level; and environmental behavior of residents in the border region.

Kimberly received her Ph.D. from El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana, Baja California. The title of her dissertation work was “Local Government Capacity and Quality of Life in the U.S.-Mexican Border: The Case of Calexico, California and Mexicali, Baja California”. She received her Masters of Arts in Political Science with a focus on International Relations from San Diego State University and Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of California San Diego.

Silvia Lagunas is a student research assistant at the Center. Her responsibilities include the collecting, organizing, and updating of data contained in the CCBRES database. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor's degree in English at SDSU, in Imperal Valley Campus. Silvia can be reached at (760) 768-5510 or at slagunas@projects.sdsu.edu

Zarina Vélez is a Technical Assistant at the Center. Her responsibilities include technical support, maintenance of computer equipment, network, the CCBRES website and other websites of the CCBRES department. She received a Bachelors of Computer Engineering from the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, in Mexicali. She can be reached at zvelez@projects.sdsu.edu.