Faculty Voices

How does art make a difference? Students in Raquel Jimenez's Arts and Cultural Organizing Intensive course at the Harvard School of Education got to see how in a learning experience in Puerto Rico. In Faculty Voices, Jimenez, a lecturer on education and co-chair of the Arts and Learning Concentration at HGSE, and David Guerra, a curator and Harvard Law School alum, discuss the impact of the experience and what Puerto Rico can teach us.

Louis E. Caldera, a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, chaired the Panama Canal Commission the year the Canal was returned to Panama, 1999. He was also the first (and only) Latino to serve as Secretary of the Army. He talks on issues ranging from President Trump's threat to "take back" the Canal to the implications of the ban of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) on the nation's military and security.

As we head into a new era under President Donald Trump, migration and rights are very much in the news, even as we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Threatened deportations and the end of some existing paths to legal status, as well as the Supreme Court decision against university use of affirmative action, create new challenges. Aitor Bouso Gavín, a lecturer of Latinx Studies at Harvard's Ethnicity, Migration, Rights (EMR) and the faculty coordinator for the Latinx Studies Working Group, discusses the important role of Latinx Studies.

Tomomichi Amano is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Market Unit at Harvard Business School. Recently he's been researching a large Colombian retailer.

In honor of Black History Month, Amber Henry, an assistant professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard, discusses the importance of Black history past and present. An anthropologist of Latin America and the Caribbean, her latest book focuses on San Basilo de Palenque in Colombia, a community founded by runaway formerly enslaved people.

You can access the information about Colectivas Infancias by clicking the link below.https://infanciasenmovimiento.org/en/infancias-collective/ 

Vesall Nourani, an assistant professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, will be teaching a course on Education for Community Development this semester. With a disciplinary background in development economics, he talks about his research on education and development in both Colombia and Uganda,

Ignacio Bunster-Ossa, a design critic in landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design,co-teaches a timely studio course on the Panama Canal with fellow faculty member Anita Berrizbeitia. He talks about the implications of President Donald Trump's threats to take over the Canal, as well as "how a 19th-century symbol of 'ecological triumph' can be transformed into a 21st-century landscape that repairs, reconciles, and reconnects, safeguarding local conditions and aspirations from mounting pressures from ongoing global interests and climate uncertainty."

Are Latinx immigrants and transgender people the canaries in the coal mine for the new Trump administration? Alejandra Caraballo, Esq., a clinical instructor in the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard University Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, reflects on future challenges, historical precedents, and what we can do. Before joining Harvard, Caraballo worked as a staff attorney with the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, and at the LGBTQ Law Project at New York Legal Assistance Group, where she focused on immigration and family law.

Raúl Zegarra, Assistant Professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies at the Harvard Divinity School, talks about the relationship between faith and politics, as well as surprising trends in today's Catholicism.

Brian D. Farrell, Harvard Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Entomology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, talks about his latest research with mosquitos and other insects.

Marcel Roman is an Assistant Professor of Government at the Department of Government. He specializes in racial and ethnic politics in the United States, with a focus on Latino political behavior, immigration, and policing. In this Faculty Voices, he talks to us about the Latino vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Américo Mendoza-Mori. an interdisciplinary scholar whose research focuses on U.S. Latinx and Indigenous communities, discusses Hispanic Heritage Month in the context of post-affirmative action. Mendoza-Mori is affiliated with Harvard's Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, Rights and is currently teaching at Northeastern University.

Chris Lombardo, Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies and Lecturer in Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at Harvard, is very active in the Harvard University Chapter of Engineers without Borders. He just came back from a trip to Los Sanchez Water Supply Project in the Dominican Republic, where he has been working for more than a decade.

Noreen Tuross, Landon T. Clay Research Professor of Scientific Archaeology at Harvard's Department of Evolutionary Biology, talks about her most recent project, "A Land of Art and Botanicals: Collaborative Research at the Cueva de las Manitas, Oaxaca, Mexico."

Alicia Yamin, Lecturer on Law and the Director of the Global Health and Rights Project at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, talks about Mexico's judicial reform plan, which makes all federal judges elected, rather than appointed positions. Yamin, who is also Adjunct Senior Lecturer on Health Policy and Management at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, considers this a threat to Mexican democracy.

Alisha Holland, a Professor in the Government Department at Harvard University, discusses the situation in Ecuador, an Andean country that faces multiple challenges from organized crime, as well as economic and energy crises.

Pablo Pérez Ramos, an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, discusses “Oasis of Mezcal," his work in a Oaxacan rural community where agave-growing is changing agricultural production patterns. It is at once an intensely local story and a reflection of worldwide challenges posed by climate change and environmental degradation.

Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, talks about the findings of a new database for transitional justice: https://transitionaljusticedata.org/ You may find some of them surprising!

Ricardo Hausmann, the founder and Director of Harvard's Growth Lab and the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School, was Minister of Planning of Venezuela (1992-1993). Here, he reflects on the crisis in his country following a disputed presidential election which most say was stolen by Venezuela's autocratic regime.

As protests rage in Venezuela and allegations of electoral fraud mount, Steve Levitsky, Professor of Government at Harvard University and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, discusses the challenging situation.

Christina Warinner, Professor of the Social Sciences in the Harvard Department of Anthropology and Sally Starling Seaver Associate Professor at the Radcliffe Institute, has uncovered lost stories about the ancient Maya city of Chichén Itza. With techniques like ancient DNA, isotopes and bioarchaeology, she and an international team of genetic scientists have made some startling discoveries that contradict the myth of sacrificed virgins—the offering of little boys, particularly twins.

Natalia Garbiras-Diaz, an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, examines peace processes in Colombia. She's particularly interested in the formation of citizens' and excombatants' attitude towards peace agreements and their role in stabilizing peace in post-conflict situations.

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned April 25, clearing the way towards new elections. Dr. Louise Ivers, Harvard professor of global health and social medicine, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, has devoted 21 years of her life to Haiti. Here, she talks about the current situation in the country and how it affects ordinary people.

Paulina Alberto, Harvard Professor of African and African American Studies and of History, discusses her work with Afro-Latin American lives, thought and politics, and why creating narratives about that history is important.

Michael Chu, faculty at Harvard Business School, talks on Faculty Voices about how businesses can be instrumental in providing goods and services to low-income and middle-class people in Latin America.

Thomas Bossert, Senior Lecturer. Emeritus in the Department of Global Health and Population of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, reflects on his career trajectory and the lessons he's learned as a “traveling scholar” who has worked as a researcher, teacher and advisor in almost 80 countries around the world after starting as a Latin Americanist.

Steve Levitsky, the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government at Harvard University and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard, discusses the recent landslide election of far-right Javier Milei as Argentina's next president.

Daniel Nocera, the Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, talks about a biofertilizer that has the potential to revolutionize world agriculture and save energy in the process.

Steven Levitsky, the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government at Harvard University, takes a deep look at Argentine elections, the recent October 22 run-off and the final elections November 19 with the incumbent party Sergio Massa facing off against the far-right candidate Javier Milei.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, a new faculty member in Harvard's History Department, looks at ethnic studies in the context of the Supreme Court's recent decision on affirmative action, as well as innovative digital humanities research, immigration justice and transnational migration from the Caribbean. His research and teaching focus on the history of Latinx people in the United States, the history of Latin America and the Caribbean, immigration and asylum law, publicly engaged humanities, and digital humanities. He is also the third Harvard senior faculty member dedicated to the teaching and scholarship of ethnicity, indigeneity, and migration.

Dr. Marcela del Carmen is the president of Massachusetts General Physicians and Vice President of Mass Gen Brigham. She is a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School. And she's also an immigrant from Nicaragua. On this episode of Faculty Voices, we talk about her experience and the challenges to diversity and equity in the context of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Daniel Neafsey, Associate Professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of of Public Health, as well as Associate Director of the Broad (Brode) Institute's Genomic Center for Infectious Disease, talks about his work combatting malaria in Colombia and Guyana through cutting-edge technologies.

Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, discusses the 50th anniversary of the Sept. 11 coup in Chile and why the coup still matters.

Adriana Umaña-Taylor, the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, talks about her work with the Identity Project, applying developmental science to help reduce ethnic-racial disparities for adolescents both in Latinx communities in the United States and in Colombia.

Ecuadoran presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, an anti-corruption crusader, was assassinated at gunpoint August 9, just two weeks before the country's elections. Alisha Holland, Associate Professor in Harvard's Government Department who specializes in the Andean region, analyzes the horrific event and what it means for Ecuador.

Diane Davis, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism recently co-organized a two-day conference on water with Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Professor of the History of Science and Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico in Harvard's History of Science Department. The two—co-chairs of the Faculty Committee on Mexico at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies—brought together an unusual group of experts—from historians to hydrologists to border analysts and architects—to think about think about the challenges for water in Mexico and beyond in the context of climate change.

On the occasion of International Women's History Month, Jennifer Alpert, a Lecturer in Harvard's History and Literature program, discusses the representation of Latin American and Latinx women in film and television—ranging from Carmen Miranda to Encanto to the Gordita Chronicles. As a film scholar who worked on "From Latin America to Hollywood: Latino Film Culture in Los Angeles 1967–2017," aiming to increase Latin American/Latinx representation in popular media, she gives as an insider's view on progress and setbacks in the depiction of women.

Emiliana Vegas, a professor of practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, focuses on improving educational opportunity in developing countries. She discusses learning loss caused by Covid-19 in Latin America and what we can do about it, as well as the challenges faced by teachers in a profession with declining prestige. And although it hasn't caught on yet in Latin America, she takes a look at the innovative technology of micro-credentials and what it might mean for the region.

Dr. Steffany Chamut, an instructor in oral health policy and epidemiology at the Harvard Dental School, talks about her work with a collaborative project between an interdisciplinary team of public health experts from Harvard and Mexico to jointly combat the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (including obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay) arising from increased consumption of sugary snacks and beverages in both countries. Originally from Mexico, Dr. Chamut believes an important factor is integrating oral health into early childhood education.

What's going on in Peru? Harvard's Government Professor Steven Levitsky, who is also the director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the co-author of How Democracies Die, tells us of the many challenges the country faces after Peruvian President Pedro Castillo was ousted from office last week after an attempted self-coup. His Vice-President Dina Boluarte became the seventh president in six years and the first female Peruvian president in history.

World Cup: Daren Graves, Lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Steve Ortega, an Associate at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, like to call themselves “the Sports Profs.” They discuss the World Cup and the role of Latin American teams.

Marcia Castro, Andelot Professor of Demography at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is chair of the Brazil Studies Program at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS). We're talking to her about the recent election in Brazil.

During Hispanic Heritage Month, Faculty Voices talked with Mayra Rivera Rivera, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies at Harvard University,. She discusses what it means to be Latinx with shared cultures and history of a colonial past.

After the October 2 first-round election, Brazilians will return to the polls October 30 to decide between left-leaning front-runner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva "Lula" and the right-wing incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro. Sidney Chalhoub, a Brazilian social historian, is David and Peggy Rockefeller Professor of History and of African and African American Studies, discusses the Brazilian elections, the challenges the country faces and the very threat to Brazilian democracy.

Gonzalo Giribet, the director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology and a Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Zoology, Harvard University, talks about the museum's many collections, including a considerable quantity from Latin America. He also discusses his fieldwork and how Harvard undergraduates in his class will have the opportunity to explore biodiversity in Bocas del Toro, Panama, for the first time since the pandemic.

Doris Sommer, Ira Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies, tells us of an unusual collaboration with Pope Francis and of her new projects, including the Renaissance Project, which aims to make cultural initiatives a priority in cities around the world.

In the wake of Gustavo Petro's August 7 inauguration, Alisha Holland, Associate Professor in Harvard's Government Department who specializes in the Andean region, talks about the challenges facing the incoming left-leaning government. In a wide-ranging interview from Bogotá, she discusses his cabinet and such issues facing his government as land and police reform, security issues, health care and the environment.

Patricio del Real, Associate Professor of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, talks about his new book Constructing Latin America: Architecture, Politics and Race at the Museum of Modern Art. It's the fascinating story of how race, gender, politics and even climate control formed the tapestry of Latin American modernist architecture and how it was projected through MOMA.

Alejandro de la Fuente, Director of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, brings us up to date on the situation in Cuba, looking at human rights, the economy and the staggering flow of Cubans from the island.

Ricardo Hausmann, the founder and Director of Harvard's Growth Lab and the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School, talks about Latin America's path to economic recovery. He examines a wide range of subjects, including the pandemic, global inflation, decarbonization and the impact of Russia's invasion of the Ukraine on Latin America.