Michael Bakal works as an educator, researcher, and organizer working in the U.S. and in Guatemala. Currently a PhD Student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, Michael’s research focuses on participatory and youth-engaged approaches to the design and evaluation of learning environments and community programs. Working with colleagues in Maya-Achí territories in Guatemala, his current project is focused on the development and study of Buen Vivir, an Indigenous and communal concept of the good life, as a pedagogical framework. Michael organizes and collaborates with Voces y Manos,...
Dennis joined the Center for Latin American Studies as a Graduate Affiliate in 2022 as he advances his interdisciplinary work and graduate research from the perspective of an economic geographer working at the intersection of fire ecology and decision. His most recent work is framed by considering historic immigration policies, operational decisions, labor and resource management in landscapes across fire ecologies of North America. Previously Dennis has worked as a policy analyst at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at the International Energy Agency, engaged in...
Ángela received her B.A. in Anthropology from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá) and an M.Sc. in Geography from the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá). In 2015, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue her doctoral studies in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Before coming to Cal, she was a social researcher at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Universidad de los Andes, and the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia (Icanh).
Christine Delia is a PhD student in the History of Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She researches global modern art with an emphasis on artists working in Mexico, Morocco, and the United States. Her dissertation, tentatively titled: “Mirror Effects: Fragmentation, Figuration, and Globality in Mexican, Moroccan, and US modern art, 1929-1949” examines three murals by Spanish artists dispersed around the world in the years surrounding the Spanish Civil War. The project explores questions related to exile/displacement/migration, including the economic impact of these...
Leo Dunsker is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English and the Program for Critical Theory. His dissertation project is about the reinvention of the epic poem by modern Anglophone Caribbean writers as a vehicle for narrating supposedly unarratable histories. He co-organizes the Contemporary Poetry and Poetics Working Group at the Townsend Center for the Humanities, as well as the Poetry Colloquium and Postcolonial/Global Anglophone Colloquium in the Department of English.
Mônica Gimenes (she/her) is a feminist researcher of contemporary Latin American literature and cultures. Her doctoral dissertation foregrounds the aesthetic dimensions of the political work combating feminicidal violence in recent novels and short stories from Brazil and Argentina. She is also a translator and an award-winning instructor of Portuguese and Spanish languages and literature. Mônica holds an M.A. in Spanish and a B.A. in Multimedia Studies: Journalism from Florida Atlantic University.
Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies
Patricia de Nóbrega Gomes is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, with a Designated Emphasis in Women and Gender Studies. Her research is on contemporary Black and Indigenous artists in Brazil working in performance, mixed-media, sculpture, and photography. Her research interests also include Black Studies, Performance Theory, Feminist Theory, and Critical Indigenous Studies. Her dissertation, "Geo-corporeal Politics of Performance and Feminist Strategies in Brazil," focuses on the contemporary...
Adriana Gonzales is a 2nd year Master’s/Ph.D. student in the Energy and Resources Group department. She is interested in investigating energy, disaster, and climate change adaptation in the Caribbean from an ecological and humanistic lens. She is particularly interested in understanding sociopolitical histories of empire, labor, and environment to better understand the present vulnerabilities of Caribbean ecologies and energy systems in Dominica and Puerto Rico under conditions of climate change and related catastrophes. Adriana is also the co-founder of the Caribbean Coalition at Berkeley...
C. Darius Gordon (they/them) is a PhD candidate in the Graduate School of Education’s Critical Studies of Race, Class, & Gender program. Broadly, they study the 20th century intellectual histories of Black liberation movements throughout the Atlantic world. Drawing on Black feminisms and Black Geographic thought, Darius’s current work focuses on the social, material, and symbolic relations forged between Brazilian Black movements and the anti-colonial revolutions of Lusophone Africa from the 1960s-80s.
Gabriel Lesser is a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. He studies humor in Latin American literary and visual culture. His dissertation is about racial satire, caricatures, and nation-building in nineteenth-century Mexico and Brazil. He received a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation grant to conduct archival research in 2023. Prior to starting his doctorate, Gabriel earned his B.A. in Hispanic Studies from Brown University and worked at the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress. At UCB, he has taught classes in both Spanish and Portuguese.
