EDUCATION: TAMIU hires 32 new faculty

By Veronica A. Mata
Bridge contributing writer
Published Monday, Nov. 24, 2025

Due to high enrollment numbers, Texas A&M International University hired 32 new faculty members for the Fall 2025 semester. Among those new recruits, Assistant Professor of transportation and international logistics Miguel Gaston Cedillo-Campos and Clinical Assistant Professor of communication science and disorders Daniella Garcia-Zertuche joined the TAMIU community.

TAMIU Associate Provost Ariadne Gonzalez said the University goes through a hiring process every year to find faculty for programs in need.

“We look for the areas that are in greater need,” Gonzalez said. “For example, we hired a lot of faculty this year for nursing.”

This is a collective effort where the applicable department chair selects faculty to participate in a search committee, which interviews potential candidates and picks the top three or four. Then, administrative associates book flights and prepare interviews with administrators. The dean meets with candidates to evaluate their strengths. The provost reviews the information provided by the committee and the chair, then offers the contract to the chosen candidate.

“It’s a lot, but because it’s dispersed through each department, that’s why it’s done in a way that sometimes seems seamless,” Gonzalez said.

The hiring process for each semester is typically completed during the prior semester. The interviews and campus visits usually happen during the prior semester.

“By early Spring, we may already know a good number [who are] gonna be joining us the next August,” Gonzalez said.

Faculty search committees look into academics, degrees, experience and research and have managed to find candidates who meet TAMIU’s standards.

“So, these are folks [who] are coming in from some of the best universities all around the country, and also international, and they’re doing amazing research,” Gonzalez said.

She emphasized the importance of bringing in people who do good research and whose research brings opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students.

“So, when we hire faculty, we’re looking for that as well,” Gonzalez said. “Faculty are looking at that, right? To bring in people who are doing really great things …”

Cedillo-Campos graduated from the University of Paris XII where he gained international exposure while training for teaching and research.

“Living in France also allowed me to appreciate the value of comparative perspectives, which I now apply to the North American and Latin American context.” Cedillo-Campos said.

He sought to study a transdisciplinary topic that uses the knowledge of different areas and could solve existing problems.

“My most important, lead motive is to deliver solutions for real problems,” Cedillo-Campos said.

For him, the most appealing thing about teaching at TAMIU is its proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Laredo is one of the most important land port entries of the world,” Cedillo-Campos said. “So, for someone trying to research in logistics, this is the right place to do that.”

He also enjoys teaching students whose families work in logistics and can provide feedback to relevant issues from those experiences.

“Even the classes are interesting because the feedback from students are feedback related to the real problems and logistics,” Cedillo-Campos said.

His goals as a TAMIU professor include offering innovative research and teaching materials to help train students to become global leaders in logistics. He emphasized how logistics is one of the keys to cities and societies having a successful future.

“In my opinion, logistics is a kind of a powerhouse of trade and if we have well-trained professionals, we can be sure the future of trade, the prosperity of cities like Laredo, could be great,” Cedillo-Campos said.

Daniella Garcia-Zertuche graduated from TAMIU in 2012. She later earned her master’s at the University of Texas-Pan American, now known as the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She said her two-year program was a great experience where she had a lot of collaboration with professors and clinical instructors.

“It was great learning from another community and professionals [who] were in Edinburg [and] in the McAllen area,” Garcia-Zertuche said.

As a kid, Garcia-Zertuche was interested in teaching and other subjects but later discovered TAMIU’s communication disorders program. As a TAMIU professor, she gets to fulfill her childhood dream of teaching others about sounds and gets to pursue her interest in medicine as a speech-language pathologist.

“In my profession, I really get to do everything that I ever wished when I was younger,” Garcia-Zertuche said.

Most of her professional career consisted of working at the hospital where she loved to teach everyone about speech therapy and saw teaching at TAMIU as a great opportunity. Not only did the University hold a lot of memories for her, but she was interested in seeing how students were being formed into future therapists and clinicians.

“Now, I had this opportunity and it really sparked my interest because I was gonna get to see students before they became therapists or clinicians.” she said.

Garcia-Zertuche said health care is an area with a lot of challenges, responsibilities and the need for a variety of skills. She wanted to give back and provide students what she missed as a TAMIU student herself.

“It’s definitely not just what you learn from a textbook when it [is] in regard to communication disorders, but more holistic in a way,” Garcia-Zertuche said.