Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Remembering Debra Castillo
Scholar and Champion of Latinx Students
Debra Castillo (1953–2025) was director of Einaudi's migration studies minor and active in several regional and thematic programs.
Additional Information
Laidlaw Scholars Q+A Webinar with Pachaysana
November 6, 2025
5:00 pm
For the summer 2026 Leadership in Action experience, students will be placed with the Pachaysana Foundation exploring what it means to be an intercultural leader in today’s complex, fractured world. Please attend this Q+A webinar with Pachaysana Foundation to learn more about their work and how the Laidlaw Scholars explore leadership as something we live—grown in relationship and rooted in the wisdom of agrarian, Indigenous, and activist communities.
Attendance and participation in the Q+A are highly recommended for Laidlaw Scholars applicants. Applications are due January 12, 2026.
Register here. Can’t attend? Another Q+A webinar is scheduled for November 5.
Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu with questions.
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The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
East Asia Program
Southeast Asia Program
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Institute for African Development
Institute for European Studies
South Asia Program
Migrations Program
Karen Jaime, "Digital Poetics: HIDVL and Queer Nuyorican Performance"
October 24, 2025
12:00 pm
Olin Library, 703
Please join us for an event in our Digital Humanities Initiative Colloquium Series: a presentation by and conversation with Karen Jaime, Associate Professor of Performing and Media Arts and Latina/o Studies at Cornell. Professor Jaime's talk will focus on the Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library (HIDVL), the first major digital video library of performance practices in the Americas, and queer Nuyorican performance and poetry.
Lunch will be served! All are welcome.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Laidlaw Scholars Q+A Webinar with Pachaysana
November 5, 2025
12:00 pm
For the summer 2026 Leadership in Action experience, students will be placed with the Pachaysana Foundation exploring what it means to be an intercultural leader in today’s complex, fractured world. Please attend this Q+A webinar with Pachaysana Foundation to learn more about their work and how the Laidlaw Scholars explore leadership as something we live—grown in relationship and rooted in the wisdom of agrarian, Indigenous, and activist communities.
Attendance and participation in the Q+A are highly recommended for Laidlaw Scholars applicants. Applications are due January 12, 2026.
Register here. Can’t attend? Another Q+A webinar is scheduled for November 6.
Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu with questions.
***
The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
East Asia Program
Southeast Asia Program
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Institute for African Development
Institute for European Studies
South Asia Program
Migrations Program
Democratic Leadership in a New World: Costa Rica’s Former President Laura Chinchilla in Conversation
October 28, 2025
4:30 pm
Warren Hall, B25
You are warmly invited to join us for a special event with President Laura Chinchilla, 2025-2026 John W. Nixon ’53 Distinguished Policy Fellow, in conversation with Professor Rachel Riedl, Peggy J. Koenig ’78 Director of the Center on Global Democracy, and Zarifa Ghafari, Human Rights Activist, former Afghan mayor, and Cornell MPA ’26.
Event registration: Please scan the QR code on the attached flyer or register via this link.
We hope you will join us for this timely and engaging conversation.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Pedro M. R. Barbosa
LACS Visiting Scholar
Pedro M. R. Barbosa is researcher on public policy, comparative late welfare states, political economy, and the politics of redistribution. He studied the transformations and politics of late welfare states, which led to a number of publications (Barbosa, 2024; Camargo; Barbosa, 2024; Barbosa, 2023; Barbosa et al, 2023; S'atyro et al, 2019) in addition to his dissertation.
Recently, he has focused on the political polarization in Latin America (Tanscheit; Barbosa, 2023) and the politics of redistribution (Barbosa, 2023).
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How Communities Can Bridge the Digital Divide
Mildred Warner, IES/LACS
A new book highlights innovative state and local approaches to eliminating “digital deserts,” which persist despite billions in federal subsides promoting universal access.
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World in Focus: Venezuelan Drug Boat Strikes
October 7, 2025
4:00 pm
Uris Hall, G08
Join Einaudi Center experts for World in Focus Talks on global events in the news and on your mind. Our faculty's research and policy insights put the world in focus.
This year we’re hosting informal campus discussions on many Tuesday afternoons. This week’s topic:
Following a military buildup in the Caribbean, the U.S. government has confirmed multiple airstrikes on Venezuelan boats suspected of drug smuggling—killing at least 17 in September. The U.S. claims these actions are “armed conflict” against narcoterrorist organizations. The Venezuelan government condemns the attacks as illegal.
Is the U.S. violating international law? What may happen if tensions continue to escalate?
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Featured Faculty
Oumar Ba (PACS) | Government Pedro M. R. Barbosa (LACS) | Visiting ScholarKen Roberts (LACS) | GovernmentDavid Bateman | GovernmentAleida Sandoval | Visiting Scholar
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Conversations Matter at Einaudi
This conversation is hosted by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and its regional and thematic programs. Find out what's in store for students at Einaudi!
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
East Asia Program
Southeast Asia Program
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Institute for African Development
Institute for European Studies
South Asia Program
Migrations Program
Southwest Asia and North Africa Program
Warming Climate is Biggest Threat to Rangelands
Lund Debater Chris Barrett in World in Focus
Chris Barrett (Dyson/Brooks) analyzes climate impacts on Mongolian rangeland this month in Science. He joins Muna Ndulo (Law) on October 22 to debate the future of international aid.
Is (Cutting) International Aid Good?
This year's Lund Critical Debate explores the impact of aid on global communities, what makes aid effective—and how to move forward.
“It’s always struck me as puzzling, why people in suits and ties in capital cities seem to think that the pastoralists don’t understand very well how to manage these lands. And yet, there’s this common belief that you have to get them to reduce their herd sizes. That just hurts the herders.”
Overgrazing is commonly blamed as a key cause of rangeland degradation—yet policy measures designed to limit grazing damage, like herd-size restrictions and livestock taxes, can have devastating consequences on herders' livelihoods.
In Mongolia—where 70 percent of the land area is rangeland—the government revived a national livestock head tax in 2021 in response to perceived overgrazing impacts.
New research from Chris Barrett (IAD/SEAP) identifies a more significant factor: climate change.
Barrett's team analyzed longitudinal data on vegetation conditions and livestock population, collected annually by the Mongolian government across 40 years. They found that larger herds can slightly reduce rangeland productivity over the short term, but climate and weather have a much larger effect. The team published the findings on September 18 in Science.
“When we look really carefully at the equivalent of county scale over the whole country, over 41 years, we find that the longer-run changes in rangeland conditions are entirely attributable to changes in the climate,” said Barrett.
“Mongolian rangelands are affected more by the collective greenhouse gas–emitting behaviors around the globe than by local herders,” he wrote in the Science article. “Policymakers might therefore usefully focus attention on global mitigation and on international compensation for climate damages and less on taxing herders who … appear responsible for little if any of the change in Mongolia’s rangeland primary productivity over the past 40 years.”
The project began among Barrett's graduate students, including one who grew up on the Mongolian rangelands. Coauthors include two alumni from Mongolia—Tumenkhusel Avirmed ’21, MS ’23, now a research data analyst at Stanford University, and Avralt-Od Purevjav, PhD ’20, a consultant at the World Bank.
Chris Barrett is the Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of Applied Economics and Management in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and a professor in the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy. He is a frequent commentator and policy advisor on food security and agricultural economics.
Featured in World in Focus Briefs
Additional Information
Information Session: Fulbright U.S. Student Program
November 17, 2025
4:45 pm
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports U.S. citizens to study, conduct research in any field, or teach English in more than 150 countries. The program is open to graduate students, recent graduates, and young professionals. Undergraduate students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year. Recent graduates are welcome to apply through Cornell.
The Fulbright program at Cornell is administered by the Mario Einaudi Center for International studies. Applicants are supported through all stages of the application and are encouraged to start early by contacting fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.
Register for the virtual session.
Can’t attend? Contact fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
East Asia Program
Southeast Asia Program
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Institute for European Studies
South Asia Program
Migrations Program
Institute for African Development
Southwest Asia and North Africa Program