Alumni Talk: Erick Moreno Superlano ‘22 returns to BCB to speak on Migration Studies and Academia

Erick Moreno Superlano ‘22, a current PhD student in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford, returned to Bard College Berlin to give an Alumni Talk with current students. The event, organized as part of Prof. Dr. Agata Lisiak’s course A Lexicon of Migration, touched on Superlano’s experiences navigating academia and his ongoing migration research.

Before Oxford, Moreno Superlano’s journey took him from Venezuela to Argentina and then to Germany. At BCB, he was a Humanities, Arts, and Social Thought student with a focus on Literature and Rhetoric, where he reflected on his migration journey through a creative writing lens. He credits Lisiak’s A Lexicon of Migration with laying the groundwork for his research interests, calling it “one of the most important courses I took at BCB.”

He aimed to pursue that interest through graduate study. The decision, he admitted, wasn’t obvious at first, but a casual conversation with a professor changed his perspective. When Moreno Superlano jokingly mentioned applying to the professor’s elite alma mater, he expected a laugh. Instead, the professor encouraged him. “It was not obvious to me that I could apply to the best universities,” he recalled. He did—applying to Oxford’s Migration Studies program—and was accepted with a full scholarship.

His doctoral research focuses on the working-class Venezuelan immigrant community in New York. Specifically, he is looking at how their “future-oriented actions and negotiations in the city impact their moral beliefs, political perspectives, and ability to create political opportunities,” per the event description.

Beyond his doctoral research, Moreno Superlano was involved in initiatives that support displaced students and expand migration research beyond academia. He is the student representative on Oxford’s Sanctuary Committee, which aims to support students with displacement backgrounds. He has also joined The New School’s Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility as a Visiting Scholar, expanding his research on migration from the Global South. 

In his talk, Moreno Superlano repeatedly emphasized the intellectual community that first shaped his path. Reflecting on his time at BCB, he noted that it was rare to be in a place where “everyone is so hungry and constantly pushing the edges of academia.”

For current students considering graduate school, Moreno Superlano’s talk was both a window into the field of migration studies and the many pathways—academic and professional—of exploring it.

By: Mishel Jovanovska '25

Post Date: 04-01-2025