Elis Mendoza is a doctoral candidate in architecture history and theory. Her dissertation traces a history of architecture experimentation within the incipient humanitarian government of the 1970s —that runs parallel to well-established architectural histories of development and technology, and that became central in the conceptualization of today’s modern refugee and displaced people.

Elis works in the intersection between built space, technology, and human rights with a special focus in post-conflict cities. She has presented her research at the Guatemalan Court for Vulnerable Victims in 2016, she has developed research on the criminal negligence of rapacious post-disaster building practices in Mexico City after the 1985 and 2017 earthquakes, and is currently conducting research for the Executive Commission for Victims in Mexico. 

Elis is a junior fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre (2019-2020). Her work has been supported by the Open Society Foundation, the Program for Latin American Studies at Princeton, the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) and the Mexican Secretariat for Public Education (SEP) among others. She has taken part in projects by the Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative and Forensic Architecture.

Before coming to Princeton, Elis earned a bachelor's degree in architecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a master’s degree in critical, curatorial and conceptual practices in architecture at Columbia University, where she received the CCCP award for high academic attainment.