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Evelyn Selena Gamez
Dissertation title: (Re)framing the Listening Subject as a Bilingual Speaker in the Latino Community
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Agustina Carando
Year of Graduation: 2025
Alumni Placement: Instructor of Spanish at Cypress Community College
Maria Jose Gutierrez Jimenez
Dissertation title: Storying (E)motion: Migrant culture and the Affective Politics of Migration
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert M. Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2024
Alumni Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish at Emory University-Oxford College
Faith Blackhurst
Dissertation title: The Nourishing Mother in Contemporary Mexican and Brazilian Narrative
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Patrick Newcomb
Year of Graduation: 2024
Alumni Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
Maria Claudia Huerta Vera
Dissertation title: La memoria en el cine documental peruano: representaciones del conflicto armado interno.
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2024
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor of Spanish at Idaho State University
Paloma Fernandez-Mira
Dissertation title: The influence of topics on lexical diversity and subject pronoun expression: A corpus-based study of L2 Spanish Writing.
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sanchez-Gutierrez
Year of Graduation: 2024
Alumni Placement: Upper School Spanish teacher at Nueva School, San Mateo, CA
Lillian Jones
Dissertation title: The Task is in the Text: Texting and Second Language Oral Fluency
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2024
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor of Teaching and Director of the Language Program in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Irvin.
Shelley Dykstra
Dissertation title: Writing Anxiety and Enjoyment in University Spanish as a Second and Heritage Language Learners
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Agustina Carando
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Education Programs Assistant/Consultant; Language Policy and Leadership Office, Multilingual Support Division. California Department of Education
Jessica Rodrigues Poletti
Dissertation title: Explorando la mirada lesbica en el cine espanol: Del male gaze y la (in)visibilidad a la interseccionalidad
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Diana Aramburu
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Assistant Teaching Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Morgan Frances Smith
Dissertation title: Unbecoming-of-Age Tales: the niña fatal and the De(con)struction of the Paterfamilias in Latin
America and Spain
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Diana Aramburu
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Miami University, OH
Georgina Oller Bosch
Dissertation title: Hacia el Cuarto Cine: el documentalismo contramonumental en España y Latinoamérica
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Co-Chairs, Cristina Martinez-Carazo and Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2023
Lani Guadalupe Lopez Bastidas
Dissertation title: Vocabulary use and classroom practices through teacher talk: a comparative and longitudinal study
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia H. Sanchez-Gutierrez
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Adjunct Spanish Professor at Solano Community College
Daniel Coral
Dissertation title: Cartografías de la memoria: El cine colombiano contemporáneo ante la transición
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Visiting Professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN
César Enrique Hoyos Alvarez
Dissertation title: Students’ Emotions over Monoglossic Expectations: Affective Discovery and Critical Interventions in L2 & Heritage Language Classrooms
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor of Instruction at Northwestern University
Diego Alins Breda
Dissertation title: Implementing a Reading Program in Beginner Spanish L2 University Courses: Graded Readers, Vocabulary Learning, and Students and Instructors’ Perspectives
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor of Instruction, Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at the University of Texas, Dallas
Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana
Dissertation title: The Diaspora of US Childhood Arrival Immigrants: Illegalization, Criminalization, and Deportation of US Americans by the Country They Call Home
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert M. Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor in Chicanx Studies, Department of Black and Latino Studies at CUNY-Baruch,
Anna Rodas
Dissertation title: Martyrdom and the Poet: Sacrificial Imagery in Central America
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Ana Peluffo
Year of Graduation: 2022
Leonardo de Oliveira Silva
Dissertation title: Reshaping Forms: The Literature of The War of the Triple Alliance
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Leopoldo Bernucci and Robert Newcomb
Year of Graduation: 2022
Alba Marce Garcia
Dissertation title: Prostituting the Global City: The Case of Twenty-First Century Barcelona
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Diana Aramburu and Robert Newcomb
Year of Graduation: 2022
Daniela Alejandra Cerbino
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor, Cal Poly Humboldt
Dissertation title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cecilia Colombi
Year of Graduation: 2022
Victor Nieto Cervantes
Dissertation title: Protean Pythagoras: Social Critique in El Dialogo de las Transformaciones and El Siglo Pitagorico
Chair of Dissertation Committee: John Slater
Year of Graduation: 2022
Miguel Rojo Polo
Alumni Placement- Lecturer: Florida Gulf Coast University
Dissertation Title: La producción cultural del inmigrante y su creación de un nuevo sujeto ideal nacional
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cristina Martinez-Carazo
Year of Graduation: 2021
Paula Plastic Gonzalez
Alumni Placement- research at University of Adelaide, Australia
Dissertation Title: Magna Margarita: Margarita de Austria (1584-1611), relaciones de sucesos y la reginalidad moderna
Chair of Dissertation Committee: John Slater and Cristina Martinez-Carazo
Year of Graduation: 2021
Emily Frankel
Alumni Placement: Santa Clara University, Adjunct Lecturer, Modern Languages and Literatures
Dissertation Title: Subjectivities in Transit: Narratives of Chilean Women Militants in the Aftermath of Pinochet's Regime
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2021
Carmen Valdivia-Ponce
Alumni Placement: Macalester College, Visiting Assistant Professor;
Lafayette College, Assistant Professor in Department of Languages and Literary Studies
Dissertation Title: Playing Indian and Indigeneity: Fraught Performances and Decolonial Visions in the Peruvian Postconflict
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2021
Paul Kidhardt
Dissertation Title: Spanish heritage speaker comprehension and production of the obligatory subjunctive
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Agustina Carando
Year of Graduation: 2021
Gustavo Segura Chavez
Alumni Placement: Spelman College, Lecturer
Dissertation Title: Reconstitución de escena: Masacres del siglo XX chileno en la memoria cultural
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2021
Claire Lozano
Alumni Placement: Macalester College, Visiting Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Prosodically driven continuity lenition: A phonological account of spirantization in Colombian heritage Spanish
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Travis Bradley
Year of Graduation: 2021
Alejandro Rossi Brotfeld
Alumni Placement: Colegio San Anselmo, Literature and Language Instructor
Dissertation Title: ¿Un otro Chile? Una lectura destituyente para el presente
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2021
Arelis Rivero-Cabrera
Alumni Placement: Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian Regional Government), España (Spain), Archivist and Records Manager
Dissertation Title: Modelando al "pionero": educación y producción cultural para la infancia en Cuba socialista durante los 70 y 80
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2020
Sergio Diaz-Luna
Alumni Placement: Longwood University, Lecturer of Spanish
University of Utah, Associate Instructor, World Languages and Cultures
Dissertation Title: Impulsos críticos: escritos entre políticas y poéticas en Ricardo Piglia, Alan Pauls y Jorge Luis Borges
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Ana Peluffo
Year of Graduation: 2020
Pablo Robles Garcia
Alumni Placement: University of Toronto, Assistant Professor, Department of Language Studies
Dissertation Title: ¿Cuántas Palabras Conocen los Aprendientes de Español como Lengua Extranjera? Competencia Léxica y Oportunidades de Aprendizaje Léxico en el Aula de ELE
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sanchez-Gutierrez
Year of Graduation: 2020
Kathleen Guerra
Alumni Placement: Denver University, Teaching Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Contact-induced Request Softening in Northern Andean Spanish: Linguistic Ideologies in Perception and Practice
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sanchez-Gutierrez
Year of Graduation: 2020
Danae Valenzuela
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title: Migración sur-sur: narrativas y representaciones de nuevos encuentros latinoamericanos con migraciones haitianas
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2020
Melissa Patino-Vega
Alumni Placement: Portland State University, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Chicano Latino Studies
Dissertation Title: Developing Academic Biliteracy among Heritage Learners of Spanish
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cecilia Colombi
Year of Graduation: 2019
Maria Fernanda Diaz Basteris
Alumni Placement: Cornell College, Mr. Vernon, Iowa, Visiting Professor
Dissertation Title: Narrativa grafica puertorriquena: arte independiente, memoria historica y pedagogia
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2019
Rebeca Rubio
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title: Escenarios Barrocos Vigilados Cinco Comedias Representadas en la Dictadura Franquista
Chair of Dissertation Committee: John Slater
Year of Graduation: 2019
Brooke Kipling
MA
Alumni Placement: Pursuing PhD in Spanish UC Davis
Year of Graduation: 2019
Evelyn Gamez
MA
Alumni Placement: Pursuing PhD in Spanish UC Davis
Year of Graduation: 2019
Elisa Magallanes
MA
Year of Graduation: 2019
Cristina Vazquez
MA
Year of Graduation: 2019
Cesar Hoyos Alvarez
MA
Alumni Placement: Pursuing PhD in Spanish UC Davis
Year of Graduation: 2019
Aaron Yamada
Alumni Placement: Creighton University, Assistant Professor of Spanish and French
Dissertation Title: The acquisition of negative concord in L2 Spanish
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2019
Silvia Agunaga Echeverria
Alumni Placement: Denison University; University of Navarra, Spain, Visiting Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Building Fluency: A Contrastive Analysis of Formulaic Speech in Students of Spanish as a Second Language and Native Speakers
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2018
Miguel Zepeda Torres
Alumni Placement: Bunker Hill Community College Boston, Associate Professor
Dissertation Title: Debuccalization of /s/ and Historic /f/ Variation in Traditional New Mexican Spanish: an Optimality Theory Approach
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake & Travis Bradley
Year of Graduation: 2018
Lina Reznicek-Parrado
Alumni Placement: Denver University, Teaching Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Peer-to-peer Tutoring in Spanish as a Heritage Language Development: A Qualitative Study of Student Literacy Practices
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cecilia Colombi
Year of Graduation: 2018
Juan Hernando Vazquez
Alumni Placement: American School in Barcelona, Spain
Dissertation Title: Re-Making Memory: Mass Graves, Perpetrators, and Concentration Camps in the Contemporary Spanish Theatre (1990-2014)
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cristina Martinez-Carazo and Marta Altisent
Year of Graduation: 2018
Elena Atanasiu
Alumni Placement: Community College Professor, Truckee Meadows Community College
Dissertation Title: Sensory Politics in Nineteenth Century Argentina
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Ana Peluffo
Year of Graduation: 2018
David Tenorio
Alumni Placement: University of Pittsburgh, Assistant Professor, Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures
Dissertation Title: Sex After The Revolution: Queer Utopias, Sexual Politics and the Poetics of Hope in Contemporary Cuban and Mexican Cultural Production
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Emilio Bejel and Robert Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2018
Ana Varela Tafur
Alumni Placement: Tilden Preparatory School, Albany CA, Teaching Spanish
Dissertation Title: Intrusos impertinentes: Civilizadores, caucheros y regatones en la literatura del boom del caucho
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Leopoldo Bernucci
Year of Graduation: 2018
Melissa Corbett
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2018
Juan Miranda
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title: Aesthetic Representations and Theatricalization of Fotoball in New Contemporary Argentine Cinema
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2018
Daniela Suarez
Alumni Placement: California State University Long Beach, Professor in Chicano and Latino Studies
Dissertation Title: The United States in the Latin American Essay of the 20th Century: Henriquez Urena, Zea and Monsivais
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Linda Egan
Year of Graduation: 2018
Suzy Hernandez
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2018
Sergio Giro
Alumni Placement: UC Davis Law
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2018
Lani Lopez Bastidas
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2018
Fernanda Righi
Alumni Placement: Roger Williams University, Providence, RI, Lecturer for Foreign Languages
Dissertation Title: Who is the Worker? Spaces, Bodies, and Gender in Narratives about Workers in Argentina and Brazil
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Leopoldo Bernucci and Robert Newcomb
Year of Graduation: 2018
Diego Valdecantos-Monteagudo
Alumni Placement: University of Oklahoma, Lecturer
Dissertation Title: "El osculo mas puro": Eros y Religion en la Lirica de la Antigua, Sor Marcela de San Felix y Sor Violante del Cielo
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Adrienne Martin
Year of Graduation: 2018
Chelsea Escalante
Alumni Placement: University of Wyoming, Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: The acquistion of a sociolinguistic variable while volunteering abroad: s-weakening among L2 and hertitage speakers in coastal Ecuador
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Travis Bradley and Robert Bayley
Year of Graduation: 2018
Kim Morris
Alumni Placement: University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, Assistant Professor, Global Cultures and Language
Dissertation Title: Learning by Doing: The Affordances of Task-Based Pragmatics Instruction for Beginning L2 Spanish Learners Studying Abroad
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2017
Jose-Ramon Ortigas
Alumni Placement: Santa Clara University, Assistant Professor of Spanish Studies
Dissertation Title: Transatlantic Denunciations: Spanish and Mexican novelas negras Contest Neoliberalism
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Linda Egan, Cristina Martinez-Carazo
Year of Graduation: 2017
Angel Ruiz Blanco
Alumni Placement: Boston College, Visiting Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: El Marco Teórico Y Práctico De La Enseñanza Del Español Jurídico
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2017
Rebecca Pozzi (Conely)
Alumni Placement: CSU Monterey, Assistant Professor School of World Languages and Cultures
Dissertation Title: The Acquisition of Regional Features during a Semester Abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cecilia Colombi
Year of Graduation: 2017
Miguel Garcia
Alumni Placement: Fordham University, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures
Dissertation Title: Redes modernizantes: ciencia y tecnología en la literatura y el cine mexicanos (1917-1968)
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2017
Theresa Souza e Silva Bachmann
Alumni Placement: Federal University of Pernambuco, UFPE, Brazil, Post Doc
Dissertation Title: Poéticas da dissidência entre México e Brasil: diálogos entre memória e arte de tempos de repressão
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Leopoldo Bernucci
Year of Graduation: 2017
Eric Jensen
Alumni Placement: Saint Francis High School, Spanish teacher
Dissertation Title: What's in a Phrase: The Acquisition and Comprehension of Collocations in an Advanced Spanish Classroom
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2017
Anny Proctor
Alumni Placement: Eastern Guilford High School, North Carolina, Spanish teacher
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2017
Alessandra (Dvorak) Mpandenyama
Alumni Placement: Lick-Wilmerding High School, San Francisco, Spanish teacher
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2017
Tracy Quan
Alumni Placement: Colby College, then University of Delaware, then University of Colorado, Boulder, Visiting Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Becoming Fluent Abroad: Examining the Intersections of Oral Fluency, Formulaic Language, and Learner Investment in Study Abroad
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2016
Jonathan Alcantar
Alumni Placement: University of Northern Colorado, Assistant Professor Mexican-American Studies and Spanish
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2016
Isabel Baboun Garib
Alumni Placement: Escuela de Teatro de la Universidad Catolica de Chile, Teaching
Dissertation Title: Subjetividades Afectivas en el Nuevo Teatro Chileno: Cristian Plana, Guillermo Calderon y Manuela Infante
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Ana Peluffo
Year of Graduation: 2016
Gabriel Guillen
Alumni Placement: Monterey Institute of International Studies (Monterey, CA)
Dissertation Title: Expanding the language classroom: linguistic gains and learning opportunities through e-tandems and social networks
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2015
Tania Lizarazo
Alumni Placement: University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Catonsville, MD), Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication and the Global Studies Program
Dissertation Title: What Does It Mean to Survive Violence in Colombia?: Local Agencies and Transnational Alliances
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2015
David Beard
Alumni Placement: Miami University of Ohio; University of Maryland, Baltimore, Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Taking a Closer Look at English-Spanish Cognates in Word Recognition among Second Language Learners and Bilinguals: Cognate Categorization and Individual Differences in Recognition
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2015
Annalisa Teixeira
Alumni Placement: UC Davis Student Academic Success Center
Dissertation Title: The Role of Keyboarding in the Development and Retention of L2 Spanish Vocabulary
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2015