Cynthia Tobar is an artist, activist-scholar, filmmaker and oral historian who is passionate about creating interactive, participatory stories documenting social change.

A highly skilled and engaged producer, she is adept in oral history project design, digital project planning and management. Cynthia is an accomplished facilitator who brings together scholars, technologists, and artists to engage as a team to create compelling public history digital projects, humanities teaching and learning prototypes and community-based archiving and storytelling projects.

Cynthia has conceptualized and worked on several captivating oral history, socially-engaged art projects, and community-based archives that document social movements and student activism. She has lectured and published on student activism in higher education, housing justice and counter-narratives of historical exclusion in monument culture. Her multimedia art, storytelling and film work, which centers participatory oral histories as modes for resistance and place-keeping, has been shown in solo and group exhibits in NYC and abroad.

Cynthia is an Associate Professor and Head Librarian at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, where she oversees the operations of its Library and Archives, develops Archives collections, including oral histories, and leads grant writing to support programming, community-based archiving and storytelling projects that incubate spaces of culturally responsive memory-building to advance community engagement with Centro’s collections. Proud to have begun her higher education journey at CUNY, Cynthia is a Hunter College alum who holds an MA in Politics from the New School, an MLS from Pratt Institute, and an EdD in Higher and Postsecondary Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her doctoral oral history study documented the formation and impact of the student-led movement of Black Lives Matter in Higher Education.

A first generation Ecuadorian American, Cynthia was born in Jackson Heights, Queens and raised in several neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn. She lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Other obsessions include running, traveling and cooking with her daughter for family and friends.

Download long-form CV (Current as of March 2025)

Headshot by Janelle Gonzalez for Martin Bentsen Studio.