Dr. Manuel Chavez is associate professor of journalism and associate Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He has done research, teaching, and outreach on security issues in North America. His research is concentrated on issues of cooperation and collaboration on the U.S.-Mexico border management, public policy in the regional/international context, access to information and transparency of intergovernmental agencies at the binational and trinational levels, and the policy analysis of natural resources management, especially related to shared water resources. He has studied how access to information, accountability and press freedom affect the capacity to strengthen civil society, citizenship, and the community. Currently, he is conducting research on news media coverage and framing of border security and immigration on both sides of the border in collaboration with the Center of Excellence for Border Security and Immigration of the University of Arizona and sponsored by U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

He has published several articles and books, received multiple grants and awards from the Tinker, Hewlett and Kellogg Foundations, Woodrow Wilson Center and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been a reviewer for the National Science Foundation, International Education USDE competitions, and a judge for peer-reviewed journals. He is a regular analyst for national and international news organizations, including: NPR, ABCradio, Michigan Public Radio, Financial Times, BBC, UNIVISION, Radio Mil, and Reforma. He is the Past-President of the Association for Borderlands Studies.

Dr Chavez teaches qualitative research methods for graduate students in journalism and he also teaches one of the international journalism courses with concentration on Latin America and the Caribbean. He directs the College of Communication Arts and Sciences study abroad program in ITESM (Tec) of Monterrey in Mexico. Every year he collaborates with Florida International University and the University of Florida in organizing the annual Journalists and Editors Workshop on Latin America.