Graduate Students

Jordan Adams

Class of 2010

Jordan Adams is originally from Southern California and graduated with a B.S. in Management Science with a minor in History from the University of California, San Diego. He has participated in university-sponsored study abroad programs in Costa Rica and Panama and has also studied at La Universidad de Concepción, Chile and at La Universidad de Chile. He is currently a second year Latin American Studies graduate student at the University of Miami and is researching the black movement in pre-revolutionary Cuba for his master’s thesis. He also has a general interest in Latin American political and economic History and a love for teaching.

 

Michelle Berry

Class of 2010

Michelle Berry is a second year graduate student in the Latin American Studies degree program at UM. She completed her bachelor’s degree in History with a minor in Spanish from Texas A&M University in May of 2008. She is fluent in Spanish and has a working knowledge of Portuguese and her interests include human rights, political economy, and economic policy in Brazil. Upon graduation, Michelle would like to work for a nongovernmental organization.

 

Gabriela de la Torre

Class of 2010

Gabriela de la Torre is in the final year of the combined B.A. / M.A. Fellows in Latin American Studies program (FILAS). She spent a semester abroad in Ecuador and has also attended university-sponsored study abroad programs in Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, and Panama. This summer, she interned with la Red Financiera Rural in Ecuador, a microfinance facilitator that works to expand access of microfinance on the international and national levels. She also spent four days in Cayambe interviewing microcredit clients of la Casa Campesina de Cayambe, and she went to the remote village of Quilotoa where they still have no access to microcredit. De la Torre is planning on doing her thesis based on a comparative study between Quilotoa and Cayambe in order to understand the effects of microcredit on rural villages.

 

Rachel Ewy

Class of 2010

Rachel Ewy is in her final year in the combined B.A. / M.A. Fellows in Latin American Studies program (FILAS). She has studied in Chile, Mexico, Panama, and most recently Cuba, where she began research for her Master's Thesis on the Cuban social, political, and economic phenomenon known as resolver.  Rachel is extremely interested in learning languages and using them with her work in visual journalism to create documentary films.  She has also interned as an integrated communications assistant at Discovery Networks Latin America and Universal McCann, and as an assistant director and stage manager for Alberto Sarrin producing Cuban theater. She hopes to become a producer of educational entertainment after she graduates. 

 

Janine Lux

Class of 2010

Janine Lux is in her final year of the combined B.A. / M.A. Fellows in Latin American Studies program (FILAS). She is interested in Latin American politics and environmental studies and has traveled throughout Latin America. Most recently she did an internship in Panama where she worked with a Panamanian NGO on issues concerning indigenous land rights. She was born in Ecuador and returns often and would love to continue working on and learning about Latin America. She hopes to continue on to the Ph.D. level; however, she plans on experiencing more of Latin America before she makes that next step.

 

Dinorah Pérez-Rementería

Class of 2010

Dinorah Pérez-Rementería is an art critic currently in her second year of the M.A. in Latin American Studies. She worked for three years at Casa de las Americas in Cuba collaborating in the editing of Conjunto and organizing theater events like Mayo Teatral. In 2003 she curated the exhibition Lightning at Pabellón Cuba and was invited to participate as an artist in the show Maneras de inventarse una sonrisa during the 8th Havana Biennale. She has performed with La Pocha Nostra and Cátedra Arte de Conducta. Dinorah has also taught creative writing with Writers in the Schools and theater with Arts for Learning. Her articles have appeared in different art magazines such as Art Nexus, Arte al Día International, Conjunto, Tablas, MAG, Wynwood, the Art Magazine, among others. She is currently working on her thesis viewing art criticism as an aesthetic object, using Osvaldo Sanchez’s art writing as a case study.

 

Daniella Suárez

Class of 2010

Daniella Suárez is in her final year of the combined B.A. / M.A. Fellows in Latin American Studies program (FILAS). She is fluent in Spanish and English; speaks French and Portuguese; and is beginning to learn Haitian Creole. She is primarily interested in topics related to the Latin American Diaspora within the United States and issues of bilingual education, immigration, and displacement. In addition to her love for her parents' home country of Ecuador, Daniella has traveled throughout Latin America and completed a semester abroad at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, Chile. Upon graduation, Daniella wishes to secure a position at a non-governmental organization dealing with the above mentioned matters or to enter a government program such as the Peace Corps.

 

Erin Coldsmith

Class of 2011

Erin Coldsmith, originally from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, is in the combined B.A. / M.A. Fellows in Latin American Studies program (FILAS). She is fluent in English and Spanish and conversational in French and Portuguese. She spent the summer interning at the Department of Homeland Security, Citizenship and Immigration Services Headquarters in Washington, DC. Her main interests are in the areas of immigration, security studies, and international relations.

 

Andrew Cooper

Class of 2011

Drew Cooper is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma and earned a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame in 2007.  After graduation, Drew lived and worked in Central Mexico for two years before returning to the U.S. and entering the Masters Program in Latin American Studies at UM.  He is bilingual in English and Spanish and his concentration involves concerns for the environment including how access to clean drinking water can impact rural communities.  Following graduation, he wishes to return to Latin America for future work.

 

Kristen Holmes

Class of 2011

Kristen Holmes is a Virginia native who completed her B.A. in Spanish Linguistics and Latin American Studies at the University of Virginia.  Her undergraduate distinguished major thesis was "Dialectos en contacto: la nivelacion lexica en la comunidad hispanohablante en Richmond, VA." Currently, she is pursuing an M.A. in Latin American Studies.  Kristen has spent a great deal of time in the Dominican Republic and studied at Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra in Santiago, Dominican Republic.  Among her primary research interests are Haitian-Dominican Relations, race, migration, and language contact.  Upon completion of her M.A., she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Anthropology before beginning a career as a professor.

 

Rachel Libby

Class of 2011

Rachel Libby is a senior in the in the 5 year B.A. / M.A. Fellows in Latin American Studies Program (FILAS). She has studied in Cuba, Argentina, Panama, and Chile and has spent time in Venezuela, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Uruguay. She interns in the Humanitarian Aid office of the U.S. Southern Command and worked with them last summer in Nicaragua as a medical translator for Continuing Promise 2009, an international humanitarian mission sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense that brought medical care to seven Latin American countries. Her main interests are public health and development and she hopes to attend medical school upon completion of the program. 

 

Elizabeth Salerno

Class of 2011

Elizabeth Salerno is a student in the combined B.A. / M.A. Fellows in Latin American Studies program (FILAS). She is proficient in Spanish and fluent in Portuguese.  Her interests within Latin American studies lie in the humanities, focusing on women's issues in Latin America. She studied in Minas Gerais, Brazil for a year; this is when her awareness of pan-American children's culture developed.  She was an intern at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, helping with an exhibit on immigrants in Miami. She spent a semester studying at the Instituto Superior del Arte in Havana, Cuba, where she had classes in literature, theater, art history, and children's literature, and attended a conference on Children's literature.  In the future she would like to continue her studies in the arts.