Sharon Salgado Martínez (she/her/ella) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Southern California, specializing in Chicanx histories in the United States. Her work centers on "histories from below," focusing on communities often marginalized or excluded from traditional archives.

Her dissertation shifts attention to the Pacific Northwest, tracing the lives of Indigenous migrants from Mexico—primarily from the state of Oaxaca—working in Oregon's agricultural industry from the late twentieth century to the present. It examines the intersections of race, law, and language access in the U.S. criminal legal system, highlighting how structural inequalities shape Indigenous farmworkers' encounters with the law while also foregrounding their strategies of resistance and resilience. Her research and public history work demonstrate that Indigenous farmworkers are active agents in contesting and reshaping legal systems.

Sharon earned her M.A. in History from Oregon State University. Her training as an oral historian informs her commitment to public history and community-engaged research. During her M.A., she contributed to a digital archive project documenting Chicanx and Latinx communities in Oregon and the broader Pacific Northwest, conducting approximately fifty oral history interviews. In her doctoral work, she continues to expand access to the voices and histories of Indigenous communities from Mexico and U.S. territories, working to ensure these narratives are preserved and made visible within both academic and public historical spaces.