A native of Mexico, Prof. Ochoa Espejo earned her PhD in 2006 from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She earlier earned her Licenciatura in International Relations at El Colegio de México and her MA in Political Theory at the University of Essex, in England. She was previously Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University and a visiting fellow at the University Center for Human Values, Princeton. Her 2011 book, The Time of Popular Sovereignty: Process and the Democratic State proposed a new interpretation of the idea of "the people" who are sovereign. Reflecting deeply on the dual meaning of pueblo as both people and town, she has continued to develop these reflections as she finalizes work on a second book, entitled Just Borders: Peoples Territories, and the Rights of Place.