Ben Aranda de Planque

(tgx24001@uconn.edu)

Ben Aranda de Planque (they/them/elle) is a first-year M.A. student at El Instituto. They hold a B.A. in Theatre and Latin American Studies from the University of Central Florida. Their research interests lie within Queer Latine culture, Latine theatre, and examining the intersectionality of identity politics.

Javier Garcia

(zag24001@uconn.edu)

Javier J. García Quiñones is a political scientist specializing in international relations, human rights, and social movements. He completed his B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Human Rights at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. During his undergraduate years, he engaged in impactful research, including his work with the Puerto Rican Public Opinion Laboratory (LabPOP), and developed expertise in analyzing public opinion data and international legal frameworks. His research interests have focused on how indigenous groups leverage international legal frameworks to assert their rights. He aims to deepen his research on non-state actors and indigenous social movements in Latin America, continuing his focus on how these groups utilize international law to influence political narratives.

Apoliana da Conceição dos Santos

(apoliana.c.santos@uconn.edu)

Apoliana da Conceição dos Santos (she/her/ela/dela) is a second-year student pursuing an M.A. in Latina/o and Latin American Studies. She received her B.A. in Language and Literature and a postgraduate certificate in Applied Linguistics at the Federal University of Maranhão, Brazil. Before coming to UConn, she worked as a Portuguese teacher in São Luís, capital of Maranhão state. Last year, she was a Fulbright teaching Portuguese at UConn. Her research interests are in exploring racial perspectives within literary works. Her intention is to further expand her knowledge in the areas of racial and social studies within the Latin American context. She aims to gain a deeper understanding of how these studies can be applied to critically examine and deconstruct the historically constructed notion of racial democracy in Brazilian society. Her many other interests include writing, linguistics, languages, Brazilian and Latin American literature, and Culture.

Maria Isabel Palacio-Cano

(maria.palacio_cano@uconn.edu)

M. Isabel Palacio-Cano had a B.A. in Pedagogy from the University of Antioquia (Medellin, Colombia). She is a preschool teacher and primary school teacher. Her research interest is in the areas of Cultural studies, Critical Public Pedagogy, Adult learning, Colombian Conflict, and Interdisciplinary Research in Education.

Menglu Chen

(menglu.chen@uconn.edu)

Menglu Chen (She/her/ella) has a B.A. in Media Studies from Emerson College and minored in Latino and Latin American Literature. She is now a second-year student at El Instituto’s Master of Arts in International Studies program after a long and thrilling journey with her lovely doggie buddy Daniel Chen from Boston, Mexico City, and Shanghai, ending in Storrs, Connecticut. Her interests include literary and cultural interaction between Latin America and Asia, especially the circulation and translation of Latin American Literature in China. Her ideal research project is to study trees, the rubber tree forests that were transplanted physically from the Caribbean to Malaysia, and the iconic imagery of ¨the rubber tappers¨ in Latin American and Sinophone Literature.

Melissa Pérez Peña

(melissa.perez_pena@uconn.edu)

Melissa Pérez is a second-year student in El Instituto's Masters in Literature program. She holds a B.A. in Literature from the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. She also holds an M.A. in Caribbean Literature from the Universidad de Antioquia.
For the past several years, her research has focused on the relationship between the maritorios and Caribbean poetic and literary production.

Jhinia Garcia

(jhinia.garcia@uconn.edu)

Jhinia Garcia graduated from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM, Peru) with a B.A. in Economics. She also got an M.A. in Public Administration from the Universidad San Martin de Porres (USMP, Peru). Previously, she worked as an Analyst in Planning and Budget for Ministerio de Defensa del Perú (MINDEF) and the Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Infraestructura de Transporte de Uso Público (OSITRAN). Also, she worked as a Research Assistant in the Marketing Group of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Her research interests are Behavioral Economics, Health Economics, and Education (relationship between teaching methodologies and motivation).

Crystal Elescano

(crystal.elescano@uconn.edu)

Crystal Elescano (she/her/ella) has a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Connecticut, and second-year student at El Institutos M.A. program in International Studies. She is currently a bilingual reporter for the Meriden Record-Journal's Latino Communities Reporting Lab where she focuses on the Latino community in Meriden and surrounding areas—covering businesses, issues, traditions, etc. Her interests focus on los desaparecidos, political corruption, and terrorism in Latin America.

Ruth Edwards

(ruth.2.edwards@uconn.edu)

Ruth Edwards has a B.A. in Puerto Rican and Latino Studies from Brooklyn College, and a student in El Instituto’s MA program in Latina/o and Latin American Studies. Her interests include Black and Latinx small business formation and entrepreneurship, with a specific focus on the ethics and practices of care among BIPoC small business owners/managers and how the work of care links entrepreneurs with clients, workers and suppliers.

Zoé González-Lanza

(zoe.gonzalez-lanza@uconn.edu)

Zoé González-Lanza (she/her/ella) is a graduate pursuing an M.A. in Latina/o & Latin American Studies at El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus (UPRRP), with a bachelor's degree in Secondary Education and a concentration in History. She is a middle school social studies teacher and gender and family historian of the later nineteenth and early twentieth-century Puerto Rico. At El Instituto, she aims to develop historical research that studies the intersections of race and gender in Puerto Rico's marriage institution; particularly how the laws of coverture affected Puerto Ricans' citizenship and rights in the territory during 1899-1936. Other areas of interest are women's agencies in regarding and resignifying the state and hegemonic institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean.