Recent Graduates - Alumni placement

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