It is with great pleasure that we announce Professor Natalia Brizuela as the new director of the UC Berkeley Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS). Director Brizuela’s appointment will begin on July 1, 2021.
Director Brizuela is a well-respected expert on photography, film and contemporary art, critical theory and aesthetics of both Spanish America and Brazil. She is Professor in the departments of Film & Media and Spanish & Portuguese, where she is also Project Director and Co-Principal Investigator for the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs. She is affiliated with the Program in Critical Theory and Gender and Women’s Studies.
She earned her Ph.D. from New York University in 2003 and joined the UC Berkeley Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies in the same year. Since 2017, she has a joint appointment at the Department of Film & Media. In 2016, she was a Visiting Professor at the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, Columbia University. In 2018, she served as the interim director of the UC Berkeley Arts Research Center.
We are very much looking forward to Natalia Brizuela’s leadership as Director of CLAS.
Randy Katz, Vice Chancellor for Research
Linda H. Rugg, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research