Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez, Ph.D., is an historian who conducts research on civil rights, social justice movements, and electoral politics. He works in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University. He also teaches Ethnic Studies at Willow Glen High School in San Jose, California.

At Stanford he collaborates with the Director of Special Collections procuring archival research collections surrounding ethnic history, civil rights history, and social justice history. His recent projects have included the Bob Fitch Photography Archive, the David Bacon Photography Archive and publication of Work & Social Justice, the Dr. Marion Moses Papers, the Richard Rodriguez Papers, the Frank Bardacke Papers, and many other collections available for research at Stanford.  

From 2018 to 2020 he was a visiting scholar at the Latinx Research Center, University of California, Berkeley. His research focused on California history, and in particular, Chicano history and Chicano/Latino studies and Latino politics. Much of his work has focused on archival research that documents Mexican and Mexican American history. The history of Mexican labor in the United States necessarily includes the study of civil and voting rights and the generations of Mexicans who advocated for those rights. 

At Stanford he founded the Bracero Legacy Project, a public history and education outreach venture that incorporates archival material from the Ernesto Galarza Collection and oral history interviews Ornelas Rodriguez conducted with former braceros. On September 14, 2013 Ornelas Rodriguez was recognized by the California Assembly for his work as an organizer of the Bracero Memorial Highway Project.

Dr. Ornelas Rodriguez currently serves on the board of directors of the California Institute for Rural Studies. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Santa Cruz.