People
This post is also available in: Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil)
Staff
Laura Carlsen, Director, holds a B.A. in Social Thought and Institutions from Stanford University and a Masters degree in Latin American Studies, also from Stanford. In 1986 she received a Fulbright Scholarship to study the impact of the Mexican economic crisis on women and has lived in Mexico City since then. She has published numerous articles and chapters on social, economic and political aspects of Mexico, co-edited Confronting Globalization: Economic integration and popular resistance in Mexico, and co-authored El Café en Mexico, centroamerica y el caribe. Before joining the Americas Policy Program, Carlsen worked with Equipo Pueblo, as correspondent for Latin Trade magazine, editor of Business Mexico and freelance writer. She has been a consultant with the International Organization for Migrations and the Nobel Women’s Initiative. She is responsible for writing, assigning and editing materials; representing the organization in public forums; seeking out and maintaining collaborative relationships; and administering the Mexico City office and staff.
Victor D. Cruz Aceves, Program Assistant, is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the Universität zu Kiel, Germany, focusing on norm diffusion and drug policy. Previously, he was lecturer, tutor and Jr. Researcher at the same institution. In 2011 he earned an M.A. in Public Management and Governance from Zeppelin Universität, Germany, as a DAAD-PPGG scholar, right after completing a B.A in International Economic Relations at UAEM, Mexico, and an academic year in Czech Republic. He has worked as research assistant for Think-Tanks in Brussels and Cologne, university lecturer in Germany and Mexico on human rights, international relations, drug policy and language instructor (German and English). He speaks French, too. He moved to Mexico City in June 2013 to begin working for us. After his time with the Americas Program, Victor plans on conducting field research in Latin America and the US and concluding his doctoral studies in Germany.
Yasmin Khan, Administrative Director, is a highly accomplished Researcher and Urban and Regional Planning Manager with expertise in Water Resource Management, Participatory Urban Planning and International Communications. She has a master´s degree in water resource management and a second master´s in community and regional planning. Her undergraduate degree is in journalism, and she worked as a journalist in the United States and Bolivia. She has field work experience ranging from researching and implementing a rural regional water plan in Veracruz, Mexico to designing and researching sustainable agricultural practices for drought-stricken communities in Karnataka, India. She has worked on gender-related rural and urban planning issues in Latin America and Asia and has extensive experience working in La Paz, Bolivia with urban and rural planning projects, including as Communications Official for ACDI/VOCA-Bolivia. She has demonstrated success working with gender issues, participatory planning, fundraising, diverse cultures and indigenous people.
Regular Contributors
Marco Antonio Martínez García is a reporter that specializes in politics and environment topics. He graduated from Facultad de Estudios Superiores Aragón from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and has 12 years of experience in journalism. He has worked in the newspaper Reforma, El Economista, El Universal and El Centro. He has also collaborated with the Instituto Mexicano de la radio, and the magazine Chilango. He is coauthor of the book “Horas Infaustas. La tragedia del news Divine,” published in 2009.
Raúl Zibechi is an international analyst for Brecha of Montevideo, Uruguay, lecturer and researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to several social groups. He is a columnist and also writes the monthly “Zibechi Report” for the Americas Program.
Writers
David Bacon is a writer and photojournalist based in Oakland and Berkeley, California. He has been a reporter and documentary photographer for 18 years, shooting for many national publications. He has exhibited his work nationally, and in Mexico, the UK and Germany. Bacon covers issues of labor, immigration and international politics and is an associate editor at Pacific News Service as well as a collaborator with the Americas Program.
Kent Paterson is a freelance journalist who covers the southwest of the United States, Mexico, and Latin America, and he is an analyst for the Americas Program.
Kristin Bricker
Robert E. White, a former United States ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, is president of the Center for International Policy.
Tony Phillips is an Irish ecological economist living in Buenos Aires. He specializes in Ecological concerns for international finance and in Latin American regional integration. He is an analyst and translator with the Americas Program. He also edits the multilingual magazine: DensidadRegional.orgTony Phillips is a researcher and journalist on trade and multinational finance with an emphasis on dictatorships and the WTO, and a translator and analyst for the Americas Program. Much of Tony’s work is published at Project Allende.
Diego González
Luis Roberto Zamora
Carlos Aguilar
Eduardo Gudynas
Lucía Alvarez is an independent journalist in Buenos Aires and an analyst for the Americas Program, as well as an assistant with the International Political Program of the Public Policy Laboratory. Email Lucía
Marie Trigona is a journalist based in Argentina and writes regularly for the Americas Program. Email Marie
Jeena Shah, a human rights lawyer, was a 2010-2011 Lawyers Earthquake Response Fellow with the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Haiti, where she worked on the case against Jean-Claude Duvalier. She is a contributor to the Americas Program.
Translators
Esther Buddenhagen is a retired psychiatric social worker and a retired back-of-the-book indexer who currently lives with her husband in Xico, Veracruz, Mexico. She has diplomas in Spanish language and Mexican Studies from UNAM’s School for Foreigners, San Antonio, Texas branch.
Marta Sanchez Soler is a binational (Mexico-USA) migrant’s rights advocate and activist, founding member and executive director of Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano. She is a member of MIREDES International, Parlamento Migrante, Migrants Rights International, Red de Defensores de Derechos Humanos, LULAC, and promotes integration of struggles throughout the American Continent.
Carolina Sternberg is a Ph.D. candidate interested in urban geography, committed to understanding social inequalities in global cities. She is currently finishing her Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, focusing on neoliberal governance in Latin American and North America. Currently, she is making progress with her dissertation entitled: The Dynamics of Neoliberal Redevelopment Governance: A Comparison of Buenos Aires and Chicago.
Lívia Cavallini Dias is a Brazilian International Relations analyst, who has focused her studies in American political, economical and logistic issues, with an MBA in International Logistics & Commerce, who has worked in her specialization field in Brazil and in the USA. Nowadays she works as a Budget Analyst for an engineering project in a Brazilian multinational company, but her real interest and passion are still International Relations. Lívia is fluent in Portuguese, English and French, and can easily communicate in Spanish.
Sara Plaza Moreno is a Spanish English teacher for children who was awarded a fellowship to study as an exchange student at the National University of Cordoba (Argentina). After finishing her studies she went back to Argentina and started working side by side with her husband reviewing, editing and translating conferences, articles and books in the field of librarianship, information management and indigenous knowledge. Travelling through South America together, they both wrote their experiences down and put them on the web [http://thelogofalibrarian.blogspot.com/]. Settled back in Spain for now, she co-publishes “Land of Winds” [http://landofwinds.blogspot.com/] a digital magazine on Andean music and culture, and keeps on contributing to their weblog, in addition to translating, editing and proofreading academic and professional documents.
Annette Ramos holds a masters in Spanish and Latin American literature, and is a freelance interpreter and translator. Her interests include current events throughout the Spanish-speaking world and enabling the dissemination and proliferation of alternative viewpoints.
Frances Fernandes is a senior writer for the chancellor of the University of California, Riverside. She has an honors degree in Spanish with Italian from London University, spent 30 years as a reporter and editor for Southern California newspapers and teaches at UCLA Extension.
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Thomas Holloway is retired from teaching Latin American history at Cornell (1974-2000) and UC Davis (2000-2009). He is the editor of the Companion to Latin American History (2008), and the author of several books on the history of Brazil. He is a Past President of the Latin American Studies Association (2000-01), and served as Executive Secretary of the Conference on Latin American History, 2002-07. He has done translations from Portuguese and Spanish for the Hispanic American Historical Review and several other publications. He lives in Portland, Oregon, and volunteers in the carpenter shop at Ft. Vancouver National Historic Site.
Brandon Brewer holds a B.A. in Spanish and Media Arts from the University of Arizona, and an M.A. in Spanish from Bowling Green State University. He has lived abroad in Spain, Mexico and Brazil, and in 2008 received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to teach in Acapulco, Mexico. Currently, he is pursuing a Masters in Communication Disorders at San Diego State University.
Jenny Marie Forsythe holds a Master’s degree in Latin American Literature from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and is currently a Ph.D. student in Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Volunteers
Michael Collins: Michael, a former Americas Program Program Assistant, is currently a student in the Masters Program in International Relations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He holds a B.A. (Hons) in Arts and Social Sciences from Strathclyde University in Glasgow. Born in Scotland, he has lived in London, Paris, Catalunya, and Madrid and speaks French, Spanish, and Catalan, as well as his native English. Michael continues to work with the Americas Program on international events, research and translation.
Nayeli Montero Rodriguez: Nayeli currently lives in Mexico City where she works in government. After finishing her B.A. in International Relations from the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico, she received a Master’s in International Studies in Security from Birmingham University in the U.K. She was Program Assistant at the Americas Program in 2010 and continues to collaborate on research, writing and relations. She has worked and lived in Ireland and the United Kingdom and speaks English, French and Spanish.
