María C. González

María Carmen González and raised in El Paso. She obtained her BA and MA (1983) from Our Lady of the Lake University. Originally planning to be a lawyer while a student, she instead decided to go to Ohio State University,

In 1991, she joined the University of Houston Department of English as an assistant professor.

In 1996, she published the book Contemporary Mexican-American Women Novelists: Toward a Feminist Identity, based on her Ohio State dissertation. She was president of the National Women's Studies Association from 2002 to 2003, and later chair of the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies from 2022 to 2023.

An LGBT activist, she came out during her early years at UH, recalling that "[her colleagues] took it well".