My student-centered classes engage anti-racist and inclusive pedagogies, and are informed by pedagogical training received at Brown University and the University of New Hampshire. I actively work to remove hidden curricula from my classroom and develop syllabi that engage students of all backgrounds and identities, including first-generation college students, Heritage Speakers of Spanish, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and Students of Color. My courses encourage students to examine the diversity of experiences, histories, and subjectivities that define Spain, Latin America, and the greater Spanish-speaking world, while also inviting them to make connections to their own lives and communities. To this end, I seek to inspire my students to incorporate Spanish into their future plans, no matter the field or discipline they choose to pursue. I also aim to bridge divides between the humanities, STEM, and the social sciences by presenting the Spanish language and literature classroom as a space of innovation, where one might think about relevant concepts and issues from a variety of disciplinary angles.

Awards

  • 2022 Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching, Brown University Graduate School

  • 2022 David and Ruth Kossoff Prize for Leadership in Language Teaching, Brown University Department of Hispanic Studies

Teaching Certificates

The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching & Learning in Higher Education, Brown University:

  • Seminar for Transformation Around Anti-Racist Teaching. (January 2021 – September 2021)

  • Certificate IV: “Teaching Consultant Program.” (Fall 2019)

  • Certificate I: “Reflective Teaching.” (Fall 2018)

Courses Taught

Georgetown University, Department of Spanish & Portuguese

  • SPAN 3278: Literature and Culture of the Andes. Fall 2025.

  • SPAN 3279: Indigenous Literatures of Latin America. Fall 2025.

  • UNXD 1200: Race, Power, and Justice at Georgetown (Mandatory Freshman Seminar). Spring 2025.

  • SPAN 5251: Women (Re)Write the Hemisphere (Graduate/Advanced Undergraduate Seminar). Spring 2025.

  • SPAN 5350: Migration and Bordering in Latin American Cultural Production (Graduate/Advanced Undergraduate Seminar). Fall 2024.

  • SPAN 3261: Latin American Literature & Culture I (Pre-conquest through Independence). Fall 2024.

University of Oklahoma, Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics

  • SPAN 5413: What is Contemporary Latin American Literature? (Graduate Seminar). Spring 2024.

  • SPAN 3853: Introduction to Hispanic Literature and Culture. Fall 2023/Spring 2024.

  • SPAN 3423: Spanish in Written Communication. Fall 2023.

  • SPAN 5990: Pre-Dissertation Independent Study, “20th and 21st Century Latin American Film.” Fall 2023.

Washington & Lee University, Department of Romance Languages:

  • SPAN 398: Migration and Bordering in Latin American Literature and Film. Winter 2023.

  • SPAN 220: Introduction to Spanish Literature. Winter 2023.

  • SPAN 164: Advanced Intermediate Spanish. Winter 2023.

  • SPAN 161: Intermediate Spanish I. Fall 2022. (2 sections)

  • SPAN 164: Advanced Intermediate Spanish II. Fall 2022.

Brown University Department of Hispanic Studies:

  • HISP 0500: Advanced Spanish I. Spring 2021.

  • HISP 0650: Advanced Spanish Through Literature & Film. Fall 2020.

  • HISP 0400: Intermediate Spanish II. Spring 2020.

  • HISP 0200: Basic Spanish. Spring 2019.

  • HISP 0100: Basic Spanish. Fall 2018 ; Fall 2019. *

University of New Hampshire

  • HMGT 570: International Food & Culture. Spring 2022.

  • ESL 431: Advanced Speaking and Listening. Summer 2015.

  • SPAN 402: Elementary Spanish II. Spring 2015.

  • SPAN 401: Elementary Spanish I. Fall 2014.

*Courses supervised

Course Descriptions for Graduate Seminars Taught:

Women (Re) Write the Hemisphere (Georgetown University, Spring 2025)

Latin America’s mid-century literary “Boom” was infamously male-centric, privileging the voices of authors like Mario Vargas Llosa, Julio Cortázar, and Carlos Fuentes, while sidelining those of writers like Rosario Castellanos, María Luisa Bombal, and Elena Garro. In recent years, we have seen the emergence of what many have called a new Latin American Boom, one defined by the overwhelming presence of women writers. While these writers may themselves contest the use of the term Boom, it is undeniable that women are at the forefront of twenty-first-century Latin American literature and, moreover, that their prose marks a departure from—if not a contestation of—that written by an earlier generation of male Boom authors. “Women (Re)Write the Hemisphere” considers the novels and book-length works of Latin American women who were pushed to the margins of the region’s “first Boom,” as well as those who are, on the other hand, at the forefront of a powerful “second Boom.” Along the way, we will engage a wide range of secondary texts aimed at expanding students’ “theoretical toolboxes” and helping them situate each author’s respective literary, ideological, and political projects. While we will aim to read each work as a powerful literary document in an of itself—versus an example of “women’s literature”—we will nevertheless attend to the following guiding questions: Where and how does the female gaze emerge? What does the female gaze do in each text and to what ends? How does this gaze interact with formal experimentation?Featured authors may include Elena Poniatowska, Rigoberta Manchú, Carmen Ollé, Mayra Santos-Febres, Rita Indiana, Fernanda Melchor, and Pilar Quintana.

Migration and Bordering in Latin American Cultural Production (Georgetown University, Fall 2024)

What is a border? What is “bordering”? How do borders relate to race, coloniality, and imperialism? How do literature and film, among other mediums, both engage with and challenge transnational conversations around migration and borders? “Migration and Bordering” considers these and other questions via an examination of contemporary literature, film, performance, and visual art from two distinct regional contexts that are heavily defined by migratory processes: Mexico and Central America (first half of the semester), and the Peru (second half). Dialoguing with major works of Border Theory from Latin America and beyond, our course considers cultural production’s role in challenging, dismantling, reconfiguring, and, at times, upholding borders of all kinds (national, international, linguistic, socioeconomic, racial, etc.). We will also consider how various forms of migration—namely international and internal—shape these borders and those who cross them. Our approach to these questions will be comparative and transdisciplinary, drawing from a number of fields and critical approaches. At the same time, we will consider what literature, film, performance, and the visual arts might tell us about borders and bordering that Social Science research and raw data, for example, cannot. To this end, students will produce various short reading essays, a “defining key terms” midterm assignment, and a final article-length paper aimed at preparing them to make compelling interventions into the interdisciplinary field of Migration and Border Studies as humanities scholars. Readings and viewing

What is Contemporary Latin American Literature (University of Oklahoma, Spring 2024)

Organized around a series of contemporary novels, literary criticism, and theoretical texts, our course seeks to develop a working understanding of contemporary Latin American literature. While an unwieldly, virtually impossible question, “what is contemporary Latin American literature?” asks us to consider how a new generation of Latin American novelists are writing their contemporary moment and to what ends. Working comparatively across the hemisphere, we will look for points of contrast and convergence, considering both the formal strategies employed by Latin American authors as well as the specific “miradas” (gazes), ideological positionings, and political postures that inform their work. We will also draw heavily on critical and theoretical texts that engage the following fields of inquiry: Decolonial Theory; Gender Studies; Queer Theory; Critical Race Theory; Memory Studies; Indigenous Studies; and Translation Studies. Many of these secondary texts are the work of leading voices within the US-Academy, offering students interested in pursuing a career in US-Academia a taste of the field and the sort of research produced within it. To this end, our seminar will also focus heavily on professionalization. Over the course of the semester, students will write conference abstracts and papers; present a conference paper at a mock conference; develop their papers into article-length, publishable essays; and discuss possible venues for publication. By the end of the semester, students will have produced a conference paper that may be presented at a national or international conference, and an academic article that may be revised for publication.