Ana María López Caldwell

Ana María López Caldwell received her Ph.D. in Latin American Studies in May 2021. She holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Stevenson University. While an undergraduate, she founded a non-profit organization called Feed-the-Mind focused on contributing to the education of displaced children in a peripheral neighborhood in Medellín, Colombia. In the spring of 2011, she interned at the Organization of American States (OAS) in the department of Cultural Affairs. She worked as an Admissions Counselor for her alma matter for two years and specialized in recruiting at-risk youths from Baltimore City Public Schools. Throughout her career Ana María has demonstrated a desire to work with and support underrepresented students. Additionally, she has been part of various mentorship programs for high school and college students.

Ana María also earned an M.A. in Latin American studies at Tulane University and wrote her thesis on the Socioeconomic Stratification System in Colombia. She presented her research at the Southern Political Science Conference in 2015. She has been awarded two FLAS fellowships for the study of Brazilian Portuguese; these included a two year language program and culminated in a summer immersive program in Salvador, Bahia. She has been awarded multiple grants to conduct ethnographic research from the University of New Orleans and Tulane University since 2015. Additionally, Ana María participated in the 2015 Witness for Peace delegation that engaged in political incidence in La Guajíra, Colombia, to advocate for Wayúu and Afro-Colombian victims of capitalists and extractivist practices of the Cerrejón coal mine. She is a member of the Pi Sigma Alpha National Political Science Honor Society. She has attended a variety of conferences in fields ranging from academic, to higher education administration (NACAC), to public engagement (Imagining America).

Ana María expanded her M.A. thesis topic into her dissertation by incorporating issues of social dynamics, identity, and urban migration in Colombia. She worked with Dr. James Huck, Dr. David Smilde, and Dr. Steve Striffler. She was a board member of JCFA since August 2017, she was the Vice President for GAPSA uptown campus, and she was also a Mellon Graduate Fellow. Most recently, she was the Executive Director of BECNO New Orleans.