Arachu Castro, Ph.D., M.P.H., is Samuel Z. Stone Chair of Public Health in Latin America at Tulane University and Senior Research Affiliate at CIPR. Her major interests are how social inequalities are embodied as differential risk for pathologies common among the poor and how health policies may alter the course of epidemic disease and other pathologies afflicting populations living in poverty. As a medical anthropologist trained in public health, Dr. Castro works mostly on health systems responses to infectious disease and women’s health in Latin America and the Caribbean. She has worked in Mexico, Argentina, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Prior to joining Tulane in 2013, she was Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Senior Advisor for Mexico and Guatemala at Partners In Health, and Medical Anthropologist in the Division of Global Health Equity in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women‘€™s Hospital in Boston. Among other awards, Dr. Castro is the recipient of the 2005 Rudolf Virchow Award of the Society for Medical Anthropology and the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on Women and AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2012, she was named Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology. She has worked as consultant for PAHO, WHO, UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNDP, and the World Bank.

Alejandra is a first-year student in the Latin American Studies M.A. Program. She is from Nicaragua and has a B.A. in Dance with a minor in French from Tulane University. After graduating from Tulane, she worked at American Ballet Theatre, during which time, she became interested in their initiative for greater racial and ethnic inclusivity in the ballet community. Her research interests are human rights (specifically in gender and migration), and the role of women’s movements during periods of transition to democracy.

Vanessa Castañeda graduated with her Ph.D. in Latin American Studies at the Stone Center in the summer of 2021. She graduated with her bachelors in Anthropology and Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. She worked as a Spanish medical interpreter for four years for a free clinic in Kannapolis, North Carolina. She studied in Guadalajara, Mexico, for the summer of 2006 and Salvador, Brazil, for the twelve months of 2007. She completed her Masters in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University in 2014. She was the head student organizer for a two day conference entitled “Feminist Constellations: Intercultural Paradigms in the Americas.” During the summer of 2013, she obtained a Summer Tinker grant and carried out ethnographic research in Salvador, Brazil. Her Master’s thesis entitled ‘€œTraditional as Political: the Quotidian Politics of Baianas de acarajé‘€ draws from her experience having worked with the association of Baianas de acarajé and Baiana street vendors and examines the cultural politics of AfroBahian identity. In 2013, she worked as the multi-lingual Communications intern at the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York. Vanessa is the founder of a volunteer program that teaches basic English-speaking skills to Spanish-speaking immigrants working in the restaurant industry in New York City. Her PhD project examined the cultural identity politics of Baianas de acarajé in Salvador, Brazil.

Nicolás Cabrera-Schneider is from Guatemala. He holds an M.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and an M.A. in Anthropology. Currently, Nicolás is a Ph.D. student in Latin American Studies at Tulane University. His research focuses on international policy outcomes in local communities. He has published on the effects of DR-CAFTA on local communities and political party comparisons between the U.S. and Guatemala. He has researched Nicaragua’s South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region, as well as, in the western highlands, northern subtropical forest, and Caribbean coast of Guatemala. His community service includes working as a grant writer for two Guatemalan education-based non-profits. Additionally, Nicolás has published books of short stories, poetry, and novels.

At Tulane University since 2008, I. Carolina Caballero now holds a joint appointment at the Stone Center for Latin American Studies and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese since January of 2020. She specializes in 20th and 21st century texts of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and its diaspora, particularly in the genre of theater and performance. She teaches courses in English and Spanish in literary, cultural, and ethnic studies based in Latin and Latinx America and well as language courses. She is currently serving as interim advisor for the undergraduate major and minor in Latin American Studies and works to promote and advance the undergraduate program through curriculum development, activities, and networking and travel opportunities for students. As Associate Director of the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute since 2012, she also organizes and plans events, hosts speakers, and collaborate on conferences on campus that highlight the region, and promotes travel and research among faculty and graduate students. She also co-directs and teaches on CCSI’s summer abroad programs for undergraduates in Cuba and Panamá.