An art historian, curator, and editor specializing in Latino and Latin American art, Roberto Tejada earned a BA in comparative literature from New York University and a PhD in interdisciplinary media studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo. From 1987 to 1997 Tejada lived in Mexico City, where he served on the editorial board of the magazine Vuelta and was executive editor of Artes de México. He founded and co-edits the journal Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas. A former professor at the University of California at San Diego, the University of Texas at Austin, and Southern Methodist University, Tejada was appointed the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Houston in 2014.