Laura Fernanda Ochoa Rincon
Biography
Laura is a PhD student at UCLA with a fervor for democratizing history. With a background in museum and curatorial work, she is passionate about finding new ways to allow non-historians to interact with the field. Her research sits at the intersection of public history, material culture, food studies, migration, racial analysis, and gender analysis. Her dissertation looks at two different groups of women: Cuban and Colombian, and traces the evolution of their migrant, social, political, and cultural identities before and after they immigrate to the United States through the food they cook and the kitchen objects they use to create their dishes from 1945 to 1991. Her primary archive is not institutional, but is rather built from the kitchens of the women she visits, the food they make, and the oral histories she records in Bogota, Havana, Miami, and Jackson Heights (NYC). A main research objective of hers is to create a digital archive and digital exhibition of her findings to share with the broader Latino community. Before coming to UCLA, Laura held positions at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Winterthur Museum, White House Historical Association, National Museum of the American Indian, Museum of Science and History (Jacksonville, FL), and the Prussian Privy State Archives (Berlin, Germany). On her days off (which, truthfully, are becoming more and more rare), she enjoys riding around town on her moped, going to the movies, discovering new foods, and spending time with her friends at awesome cocktail bars.
Subfield
food studies, material culture, gender and sexuality, social history, migration history, cultural history, public history, oral histories and ethnographies, folklore, trauma studies, ecological and agricultural history, gossip/rumors
Publications
Ochoa Rincon, Laura. “‘Take Me Back to the Good Old Days’: Racism, Berlin Wool Work, and Comfort.” The Coalition of Master’s Scholars on Material Culture, October 29, 2021.
Ochoa Rincon, Laura. “Las Reinas: Visual and Material Culture of the San Antonio Chili Queens” American Material Culture and the Texas Experience (Volume 9), May 2024.
Ochoa Rincon, Laura. “A Million Hidden Stories: Uncovering Materials at the New Orleans Museum of Art” The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust, Winter 2023-24, January 2024.
Buchanan, Mel., Ochoa Rincon, Laura. “Sand, Ash, Heat: Glass at the New Orleans Museum of Art” Catalogue, Scala Art and Heritage Publishers, August 2024.,
Ochoa Rincon, Laura. “From the Material to the Political: Objects at the New Orleans Museum of Art” The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust, Winter 2024, January 2025.
Awards & Grants
Friends of Rockwood Fund Research Grant (2022)
Center for Material Culture Studies Research Grant (2022)
Society of Winterthur Fellows Research Grant (2022)
White House Historical Association Research Grant (2023)
Decorative Arts Trust Research Grant and Curatorial Fellowship (2022-2024)
Graduate Dean’s Scholar Award, UCLA, 2024
Burns Chair award, UCLA, 2024
Latin American Institute Grant, Mellon Foundation (2025)
UC-CUBA Initiative Grant (2025)
Board member, Latine Graduate Student Association (LGSA UCLA)
Manuel P. González Caribbean Studies Fund Grant (2025)
UCLA Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Grant (2026)
Goizueta Foundation Graduate Fellowship, University of Miami (2026)
Conference Presentations
“Las Reinas: Chili Queens and Visual Culture” 2023 David B. Warren Symposium (MFAH) April 16, 2023.
“Food For Thought: The Presidents, Food, Diplomacy, and Politics” White House History Teacher Institute, June 2022.
“Loud and Clear: Unearthing Glass Narratives at the New Orleans Museum of Art” Decorative Arts Trust Emerging Scholars Colloquium, January 2024.
“A Dish So Potent: Heritage, Identity, and Materiality of the San Antonio Chili Queens”, Alliance for Texas History, May 2025.
“‘Nadie Puede Vivir Completamente con la Libreta (No One Can Live on the Booklet)’: Kitchen Feminism and the Material Politics of the Cuban Libreta”, UCLA History of Gender and Sexuality Graduate Student Conference, May 2026.
UPCOMING: “”No One Can Live on the Booklet”: Kitchen Feminism and the Material Politics of the Cuban Libreta Through ‘Cocina Al Minuto’” 2026 UC-Cuba Colloquium, November 2026.
EXHIBITIONS:
Ochoa Rincon, Laura, “Rebellious Spirits: Prohibition and Resistance in the South”, New Orleans Museum of Art, 2024
Buchanan, Mel., Ochoa Rincon, Laura, “Sand, Ash, Heat: Glass at the New Orleans Museum of Art”, New Orleans Museum of Art, 2024
