Alicia Gaspar de Alba is an award-winning novelist, professor, and poet. Gaspar de Alba was born in El Paso, Texas on July 29, 1958. She taught English to Mexican executives and staff members of General Motors' maquiladoras at the Instituto Interlingua in Juárez, Chihuahua, from 1978-1980. In 1979, the National Research Council (NRC) in Washington, D.C., offered her a Ford Foundation fellowship. She earned her B.A. in English in 1980 and M.A. in English in 1983 from the University of Texas in El Paso. She enrolled as a PhD student in American Studies at the University of Iowa in 1985. She temporarily took a pause from her doctoral studies, which she resumed at the University of New Mexico's American Studies program. She went on to graduate with distinction.

Gaspar de Alba's research focuses on Chicano/a art, pop culture, literature, and writing. Her dissertation was titled "Mi Casa [No] Es Su Casa: The Cultural Politics of the Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation Exhibit", for which she was awarded a Ralph Henry Gabriel American Studies Dissertation Fellowship in 1993, a Ford Foundation Fellowship in 1993, and a Chicana Dissertation Fellowship from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1992. Her named was also awarded Best Dissertation in the field of American Studies in 1994. The University of Texas Press eventually published the dissertation as a book titled Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master's House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition in January 1998.

Much of Gaspar de Alba's work has focused on the murders of young women in Ciudad Juárez. Following the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, U.S.-based corporation increasingly moved their factories, or maquiladoras, to cities along the U.S.-Mexico border, such as Ciudad Juárez. This led to an increase in young women from rural areas moving to cities to look for jobs in American-owned maquiladoras. Gaspar de Alba's research has examined the deaths of over 300 young women over a 10-year period. She also helped to organized a conference titled "The Maquiladora Murders, Or, Who is Killing the Women of Juárez?" at UCLA. The conference examined how authorities on both sides of the border have been silent and complicit. Participants also discussed the sexism surrounding the murders and discussions of the victims.