Victor Maqque, Ph.D.
Managing Director
Email: vmaqque@ou.edu
Victor Maqque serves as the managing director of the Latin America Sustainability Initiative (LASI) at the University of Oklahoma where he oversees the initiative’s day-to-day operations. He is a Latin America scholar with deep expertise in the social history of Andean communities, Andean ethnohistory, and the political, environmental, language and cultural views and practices of indigenous communities. With more than 10 years of experience in helping build research and education partnerships between U.S. and Latin American universities, Maqque’s overarching approach strives for dynamic collaborations that focus on knowledge sharing and technology transfer, along with effectively mentored capacity and capability development. His work spans from research centered on the impacts extractive industries have on local communities to the region’s interconnected environmental, human health, and societal challenges.
In 2018, Maqque was appointed operations manager of the Arequipa Nexus Institute, a large-scale research, education, and innovation partnership between Universidad Nacional de San Agustín (UNSA) in Arequipa, Peru and Purdue University. In this role, he helped coordinate science collaborations involving 160 faculty and staff, managed technical workshops and symposia, and was responsible for team building and ensuring effective communications and outreach across a stakeholder network that included non-profit organizations, community groups, university partners, research laboratories, and government entities.
In 2001, Maqque led a 5-year long research alliance between the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano, Puno, Peru and Montana Tech of the University of Montana. He facilitated the planning and everyday operations of a team of 65 faculty and staff from both universities working on the long-term effects of mining activities on the environment and the health of the population of Puno region, particularly the local communities in the Titicaca Basin.
Maqque earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in the history of Latin America from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. He earned a B.A. and M.A. in Social Sciences at the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano in Puno, a Peru. He has taught courses on the history of Latin America and led study abroad programs in different countries across the continent.
