Keynote Speaker

Dr. Frederick Luis Aldama

Professor Latinx

Born in Mexico and raised in north-central California, Frederick Luis Aldama (aka Professor Latinx) earned his BA from UC Berkeley and PhD from Stanford. He holds the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at UT Austin, where he founded and directs the Latinx Pop Lab and the annual BIPOC PoP: Comics, Gaming, Animation & Multimedia Arts Symposium. He is editor-in-chief of the Latinx Pop Magazine and the Texas-based publisher, FlowerSong Press.

An award-winning author and editor, Aldama has published over 50 books, including the Eisner-winning Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics. His children’s books include The Adventures of Chupacabra Charlie (English & Spanish) and the bilingual Con Papá / With Papá. Recent works include Pyroclast, award-winning YA graphic fiction Through Fences and Labyrinths Borne, and the YA novel The Absolutely (Almost) True Adventures of Max Rodriguez.

Beyond books, Aldama produces and co-creates documentaries and animated shorts, including Carlitos Chupacabra, showcased at the 2023 Cannes Animation Festival. A member of the National Cartoonists Society, Texas Institute of Letters, and Ohio State’s ODI Hall of Fame, he also serves on boards such as The Academy of American Poets. His comics anthology From Cocinas to Lucha Libre Ringsides and the Steampunkera Chronicles multiverse both launch in summer 2025.

The 2025 LIC Keynote Speech is to take place on March 26, 2025.