Catherine Prechtel graduated with bachelor's degrees in Spanish and Anthropology from Pacific University in Oregon in 2014. While at Pacific University, she co-taught poetry classes for Spanish-speaking immigrants with the nonprofit Adelante Mujeres. Upon graduating, she continued to develop her teaching skills as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in León, Guanajuato, Mexico, from 2014-2015, and worked as an English teacher in the city from 2015-2016. In 2018 she completed her master's degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. As an undergraduate, her research focused on the formation of understandings of virginity among Mexican-American populations, and as an MA student, she explored the changing significance of the figure of La Catrina in the works of Mexican artists José Guadalupe Posada and Diego Rivera. For her Ph.D. dissertation, she is exploring how Mexican exótico wrestlers perform gender and sexual identities within lucha libre. Over the 2021-2022 academic year, she conducted her research as a visiting investigator affiliated with the CIEG (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios de Género) at UNAM in Mexico City.
