LALSI Faculty

Gregory Acevedo, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, (Ph.D., Bryn Mawr), International social work; Political, economical, and socio-cultural circumstances (particularly Puerto Ricans and other Hispanic/Latinx groups)

Sal Acosta, Director of LALSI, Associate Professor of History, (Ph.D., Univ. of Arizona), History of Latinos in the United States; Social impact of the development of the Southwest; Social and cultural experiences of Latinos since 1846

Hugo Benavides, Professor of Anthropology, (Ph.D., CUNY Graduate Center), Social theory; Historical and national production; Sexuality and identity; Latino politics; Latin America

Elizabeth Penry, Associate Professor of History, (Ph.D., Miami), Colonial Latin America; Cultural and social history; Indigenous peoples; Early modern Spain; Colonial interactionism

Susan Berger, Professor Emerita of Political Science, (Ph.D., Columbia), Latin American politics; Development of the political economy; Gender and women’s movements in Latin America (specifically on Guatemala)

Daniel Contreras, Associate Professor of English, (Ph.D., Stanford), Film studies; Comparative and post-colonial literature; Postmodern theories

Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé, Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature, (Ph.D., Stanford), Contemporary Hispanic Caribbean literature and cultures; Gender and sexuality; Queer diasporas; New York in Latino literature and film, and the writings of José Lezama Lima

Emilio Estela, Adjunct Instructor (Lincoln Center), Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, (JD, Cornell), Assistant District Attorney, New York County District, [email protected]

Carl Fischer, Associate Professor of Spanish, (Ph.D., Princeton), Latin American film, visual culture, and literature; Popular culture; Translation studies; Gender, sexuality, and queer studies; Critical theories of politics and economics

Greta Gilbertson, Associate Professor of Sociology, (Ph.D., Texas-Austin), Immigration; Gender; Race and ethnicity; Citizenship

Lisa Gill, Assistant Dean for Seniors, Adjunct Instructor of Latin American and Latino Studies & African and African American Studies, (Ph.D., Maryland, College Park)

Sarah Grey, Director of Linguistics Program, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Linguistics, (Ph.D., Georgetown), Psycholinguistics; Applied linguistics; Cognitive psychology; Neurocognition of adult second language and bilingualism

Leonel Guardado, Assistant Professor of Theology, (Ph.D., Notre Dame), Theological responses to transnational mechanisms of violence in Latin America; Liberation Theology; Concepts and practices of the Church sanctuary; Ethnographic approaches with the craft of theology

Robert Hernández, Associate Professor of English, (Ph.D. Maryland, College Park), Latinx literary and visual culture studies; Queer of color and trans of color critique; Archive theory and practice; Contemporary art; Performance studies; Speculative aesthetics and public humanities

Stephanie Huezo, Assistant Professor of History, (Ph.D., Univ. of Indiana-Bloomington), 20th and 21st-century Latin American and Latinx history; Community organization; Central American revolutions; Immigrant activism

Javier Jiménez-Belmonte, Professor of Spanish, (Ph.D., Columbia), Medieval and early modern Spanish literature and culture, Renaissance and Baroque poetics, Spanish Orientalism, and Cervantes

Carey Kasten, Associate Professor of Spanish, (Ph.D., Columbia), Contemporary Spanish culture; 20th-century Spanish theater, film, and novel; Golden Age theater; Early fascism and the avant-garde in Spain

Rafael Lamas, Director of Fordham (Granada), Professor of Spanish, (Ph.D., NYU), Modern Spanish studies of music and literature; Theories of memory; Hispanic musical theatre and performance studies; The tension between inherited identities and paradigms of action

Michael Lee, Professor of Theology, (Ph.D., Notre Dame), Christology; Soteriology; Christian spirituality; Latin American theology (particularly liberation theologies); U.S. Latino/a theology

Sara Lehman, Professor of Spanish, (Ph.D., Boston Univ.), Colonial Latin American literature; 17th-century discourse; Transatlantic and interdisciplinary perspectives

Luz Lenis, Associate Dean for Sophomores and Transfer, (Ph.D., SUNY-Albany), Spanish for high oral proficiency speakers

Tyesha Maddox, Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies, (Ph.D., NYU), African Diaspora; Caribbean; Black Atlantic; Women and Gender; African American History; Race; Transnational Communities; Migrational Movements; Immigration; Black Identity Formation; Social and Cultural History

Evangelia-Lydia Manatou, Advanced Lecturer of Spanish, (Ph.D., CUNY Graduate Center), 

Héctor Lindo-Fuentes, Professor Emeritus of History, (Ph.D., Chicago), Economic history of Central America; History of education and politics of memory (particularly in El Salvador)

Gioconda Marún, Professor Emerita of Spanish, (Ph.D., Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires), Modernismo; 19th and 20th-century Latin American literature; Interrelations of English journalism and Hispanic literature; Globalization and literature

Ronald Méndez-Clark, Associate Professor of Spanish, (Ph.D., Princeton), Latin American fiction; Translation and Hispanic Caribbean literature

Yuko Miki, Associate Director of LALSI, Associate Professor of History, (Ph.D., NYU), 

Rose M. Perez, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Social Service, (Ph.D., UChicago), Acculturation and ambiguous loss of homeland on well-being; Adaptation of immigrants and refugees to US society; Cross-cultural methods that inform social work practice and research

Erick W. Rengifo, Professor of Economics (Ph.D., Universite Catholique de Louvain), Financial Economics; Microfinance; Econometrics

Mónica Rivera-Mindt, Professor of Psychology, (Ph.D., Nebraska), Neurologic disorders; Cross-cultural neuropsychology; The effects of sociocultural factors on cognitive test performance (particularly among U.S Latina/o and Afro-Caribbean populations)

Clara Rodríguez, Professor of Sociology, (Ph.D., Washington), Race and ethnicity classifications; Media studies; Latino studies; Labor markets, Migration; Urban and regional studies

Orlando Rodríguez, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, (Ph.D., Columbia), Criminal justice processes; Program evaluation research; Mental health of minority and migrant populations

Guillermo Severiche,  Advanced Lecturer of Spanish, (Ph.D., LSU), Creative Writing in Spanish, Latin American cinema, The Body, Contemporary Argentine culture, and Queer Studies

Mark F. Street, Professor of Visual Arts, (MFA, SFAI), Film; Video

Angelina Tallaj-García, Assistant Professor of Music, (Ph.D., CUNY Graduate Center), Latin American and Caribbean Music; Role of music in the construction of ethnic, racial, gender, and religious identities (particularly in NYC Dominican diaspora)

Cynthia Vich, Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature, (Ph.D., Stanford), 20th and 21st-century Latin American literature; Avant-Garde culture and Indigenismo, Peruvian literature and culture, women writers, urban studies

Carolina Vittor Medina, Lecturer in Spanish, (Ph.D., SBU), 20th and 21st century Argentine cinema, literature, and history; Latin-American cinema; gated communities in Latin-America