Veronica Herrera is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. Her research investigates how urban communities interact with the state to impact the provision of local public services and confront local environmental hazards, with a regional focus on Latin America. Her focus in recent work is on the rise of advocacy networks and environmental litigation surrounding exposure to toxic contamination in Latin American cities. She is author of Water and Politics: Clientelism and Reform in Urban Mexico(University of Michigan Press, 2017) and has published articles in Comparative Politics, World Development and Latin American Politics & Society. Her research has been supported by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard, the Ford Foundation, the American Association of University Women, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Social Science Research Council-Mellon Mays Initiative, UC-Mexus and the Fulbright Commission.