Skip to main content

Cornell University

Latin American Studies Program

Graduate Fellows

Michael Cary

LASP Graduate Fellow '19-'21

Michael Cary is a PhD student in the department of Development Sociology. His research investigates the political economy and cultural dimensions of food, agriculture and conservation, with a regional focus on land use change in the Bolivian lowlands.

Daniel Dawson

LASP Graduate Fellow '19-'20

Daniel Dawson is a second year PhD student in the history department who studies early modern Spanish America and the Caribbean, with a focus on the religious and cultural history of the African Diaspora.

Simone De Lemos

LASP Graduate Fellow '19-'21

Simone De Lemos is a PhD candidate in linguistics and a member of the Computational Linguistics Lab. She holds a BS in computer engineering and an MA in linguistics.

Yamilé Guibert

LASP Graduate Fellow '19-'21

Yamilé is a second year PhD student in the Government Department, with a focus on comparative politics and Latin America. She is interested in the study of corruption and voting behavior, with an emphasis on the Peruvian case.

Jihany Aly Hassun

LASP Graduate Fellow '19-'21

Jihany is a graduate student and research assistant of CALS’ department of Landscape Architecture. Trained as a designer, Jihany is particularly interested in the aesthetics of emerging landscapes of production in Latin America.

John William Kennedy

LASP Graduate Fellow '19-'21

John Kennedy is a PhD student in the Department of Romance Studies where he works on the intersections of Latina/o Studies and Latin American Studies.

Carlos Antonio Mesa-Guerra

LASP Graduate Fellow '19-'20

Carlos is a second year Ph.D. student in Regional Science. He is interested in understanding the existing gaps between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries.

Andre Nascimento

LASP Graduate Fellow '20-'21

Andre is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Romance Studies. His research broaches issues of post-dictatorial notions of citizenship rights in Argentinian, Brazilian, and Uruguayan literature.

Rafael Torralvo da Silva

LASP Graduate Fellow '19-'21

Rafael Torralvo is a violinist and musicologist whose academic research focuses on the intersection between music, literature, and politics to analyze the construction of national identity in Brazil during the military dictatorship (1964-1985).

Angie Torres-Beltran

Graduate Fellow

Angie Torres-Beltran is a PhD student in Cornell's Department of Government. Her research focuses on women’s rights in South Asia and United Nations peacekeeping operations. She received her BA in international and global studies from the University of Central Florida.

Former Graduate Fellows

Ryan Edwards

Dr. Ryan Edwards received his BA in Geography from UC Berkeley and is completing his PhD in History at Cornell. His work combines historical geography, political ecology, and science and technology studies.  Dr. Ryan Edwards is currently an Assistant Professor, Department of Liberal Arts,  School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) & was previously a Visiting Associate Research Scholar 2018/19, Program in Latin American Studies, Princeton University.He spent eighteen months in Argentina conducting fieldwork for his dissertation, which reconstructs an environmental history of the Ushuaia Penal Colony in southernmost Patagonia.

Jaime Ortiz

Jaime Ortiz-Pachar is a PhD student in the department of Natural Resources. His research takes a multidisciplinary approach to the problem of invasive species in the Galapagos Islands. Through a political ecology perspective his project aims to understand the effects of the invasive species discourse in the environmental governance of the Galapagos, in one hand; and in the other hand, to explore the relationship between invasive earthworms and invasive plants. Prior to coming to Cornell, Jaime worked for the Charles Darwin Foundation, an international NGO in the Galapagos. His work was related to the integration of scientific research into public policy. He holds a B.Sc.  and an M.Sc. in Environmental Management, and Environmental Monitoring and Modelling, both from King’s College London.

JImena Vadez

Maria Jimena Vladez is a former Graduate Fellow and a student in the Government Department, majoring in Comparative Politics. She is interested in the social and electoral consequences of the economic crises, both in Latin America in the 80s and 90s and in contemporary Europe. Jimena is also a graduate student member of the LASP Advisory Committee '19-'21.