Mark Overmyer-Velazquez
University Campus Director (Chancellor)
Biographical information
Dr. Mark Overmyer-Velázquez is the Campus Director of the University Connecticut-Hartford and Professor of History and Latinx Studies. He oversees the university’s newest regional campus, its 3300 students, 300 faculty and staff, and undergraduate classes in 36 departments and graduate programs in five disciplines. At UConn Hartford, Dr. Overmyer-Velázquez works with colleagues and Hartford partners to build bridges between academic and city communities to support collaborative, engaged learning and research.Dr. Overmyer-Velázquez earned his Ph.D. at Yale University in Latin America and U.S. Latino history and has dedicated his publishing, teaching, and community activism to those intersecting fields. He has been a Fulbright scholar and visiting lecturer at universities in Mexico, Chile, and China and recently was Research Professor at the School of Human Rights and Political Science at the University of Jordan, Amman. The first Latinx elected official in West Hartford, he currently serves on a number of Boards of Directors in the Hartford region. In 2019, he received the Vision Award in Social Justice from the Charter Oak Cultural Center. He keeps his commitment to the arts by playing keyboard in the UConn faculty band, Blues without Borders.