Events

María Auxiliadora González Malabet 

UNINORTE, Colombia  
“Impact of the Political Incidence School for Migrant Women. A Case of Social Integration Between Venezuelan Migrants and Colombian Leaders in the Colombian Caribbean Coast.”  
 
María González-Malabet has a PhD in Government from the University of South Florida (USF). Her major is in Comparative Politics and a minor in International Relations. She received different fellowships to finance her doctoral thesis from institutions, such as the Inter-American Foundation, the Sisters of the Academy, the University of South Florida, and the Universidad del Norte. Her doctoral dissertation is focused on the political agency of women for the progressive change of Latin American cities. She is director of Instituto de Desarrollo Político e Institutional – IDEPI, and a full-time professor and researcher at the Universidad del Norte in the Department of Political Science and International Relations. Her research focus is on Development Policies, Gender, Latin American Feminisms, and Social Movements. She is currently a serving in the postdoc fellowship “Orchides” from Colombia’s Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation researching the impact of the Colombian Peace Treaty (2016) in Women´s political participation in PEDT zones.

Anastasia Bermúdez Torres 

University of Seville, Spain 
“The Colombian diaspora in Europe and the Truth Commission: the role of exiled women in the political space”  
 
Anastasia Bermudez is senior lecturer/researcher in the Department of Social Anthropology, Universidad de Sevilla (Spain). She has a PhD and MSc in Geography, an MA in Area Studies (Latin America), and a BA in Human Geography and Politics, all from the University of London (Queen Mary; Institute of Latin American Studies). Her main research interests include international migration and mobilities, violence and peace in Colombia, and gender and intersectionality. 

Angelina Cotler 

John Hopkins University 
“The main challenges programs in Latin American and Latinx studies face in the current political climate in the U.S.” 
 
Angelina Cotler holds a PhD in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and is currently the inaugural program director of the Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies program at Johns Hopkins University.

Previously, she was the senior associate director of the Center for Latin American at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and the University of Pittsburgh, before taking up the position of Director of Membership and Development at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). She was the co-chair of the Peru section in LASA and currently is the media manager. 

Luciana Gandini 

UNAM  
“Migration policies and prolonged transit in the Americas: The contemporary mobility context”  
 
Luciana Gandini is a research fellow at CLALS, non-resident fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, and a full-time tenured researcher at the Legal Research Institute at UNAM in Sociology law. She is a member of the National System of Researchers (SNI, CONACYT), level II. She coordinates the University Seminar on Studies on Internal Displacement, Migration, Exile and Repatriation (SUDIMER) at UNAM, which promotes research on migration and human mobilities at UNAM. She is a co-author of  Caravanas  (UNAM, 2020), which was a co-recipient of the 2020 William M. Leogrande Award.  In 2018, she received the award "Reconocimiento Distinción Universidad Nacional Jóvenes Investigadores 2018" from UNAM. 

Her project, “Emerging challenges on immigration policy: the case of Migrant Protection Protocols and other Latin American forced immigrants,” aims to identify some of the main public policy challenges on both human mobility and international protection in the Latin American region, particularly in Mexico, in a context where the increase on the mobility of people in need of international protection contrasts with the tendency of governments to impose limits on the right of asylum.  Additionally, in recent months she has focused her research on the impacts of the COVID-19 sanitary crisis on the inclusion and effective access and exercise of socio-economic rights of Venezuelan and Central American displaced populations in Latin America and how this situation generates an even more complex scenario and demands reshaping immigration policies through the enforcement of international protection principles.  

Luciana is interested in topics related to international migration, development and human rights, (in)voluntary migration and forced migration, Venezuelan exodus and Central American migrant caravans, impacts of COVID-19 on migrant and refugee population, return and skill migration, and qualitative and quantitative social research methods.

Richard Kernaghan

University of Florida  

Richard Kernaghan is an ethnographer of aesthetics and legal relations interested in rivers, settler colonialism, and political time. He teaches courses on legal anthropology and the craft of ethnographic representation at the University of Florida, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Affiliate Faculty in the UF Center for Latin American Studies.

Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian

Organization of American States  
“Regional agenda for the inclusion of migrants and refugees in the Americas”  
  
Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian (Venezuelan-American) is director of the Department of Social Inclusion of the Secretariat for Access to Rights and Equity at the Organization of American States (OAS), where she is responsible for directing the work of the OAS in matters of social inclusion and access to human rights with special consideration to populations in vulnerable situations. Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian has a Master's degree in International Relations from the University of South Florida and a PhD in Political Science from Florida International University. 
  
She has edited, published, and co-authored several articles and volumes on issues of Latin American reality. Some of her recent contributions include the articles, “The Summit is a Great Chance for Better Cooperation on Migration” (2022) and “One Year Later: Slow Progress on a Key Migration Initiative” (2023), both published by Americas Quarterly, and the book chapter, “How to achieve more representation of indigenous and Afro-descendant people in Latin America and the Caribbean” (UNAM 2022). 
  
She is also a founding member and coordinator of the Network of Latin American Female Political Scientists “#NoSinMujeres,” a project that seeks to promote, make visible, and empower the work of women dedicated to Latin American Political Science.  
  
She is a regular columnist for the Venezuelan daily, El Nacional, and for the Web portal Caracas Chronicles, as well as a guest columnist in various regional media. She is also a 2021 Fellow of the Draper Hills Fellowship on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford University, a member of the Advisory Board of the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University (GMU), and a Senior Associate (Non-Resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. 
  
In 2008, 2016, 2019, and again in 2020, she won the Outstanding Performance Award granted by the Secretary General of the OAS, in recognition of her extraordinary work and contribution to the American organization. Muñoz-Pogossian won the Status of Latinos' Alumna Award in 2023.

Edlin Veras

Swarthmore College 
“Caribbean Apartheid: Race, Racism, and the Law in the Dominican Republic”  
 
Dr. Edlin Veras is a visiting assistant professor of Sociology and Black Studies at Swarthmore College. His research and teaching interests include race, racism, immigration, and antiblackness in the U.S. and Caribbean, with a specific focus on Haiti and the Dominican Republic. His research has been published in the “Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.” He is a 2020 American Sociology Association Minority Fellow and is working on his book project tentatively titled, “Expired and Unfree: How Anti-Blackness Shapes Life after Work.”

Angela Vergara

University of Central Florida  
"Navigating Success: The Impact of Latin American Student Presence on Academic Achievement in a Hispanic-Serving Institution" 
 
Dr. Angela Vergara is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida. Her areas of expertise include Latin American sociology, global and social inequalities, and reproductive health. Her research involves topics in Hispanic/Latinx race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, mental health outcomes, and interwoven identities. Her current research focuses on gender differences, immigration status, culture language and the effects on the educational achievement gap, social class, health inequalities, and mental health accessibility in the Hispanic/Latinx population. Her teaching interests include qualitative research methods, health inequalities, and global inequalities.