Michael Bakal works as an educator, researcher, and organizer working in the U.S. and in Guatemala. Currently a PhD Student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, Michael’s research focuses on participatory and youth-engaged approaches to the design and evaluation of learning environments and community programs. Working with colleagues in Maya-Achí territories in Guatemala, his current project is focused on the development and study of Buen Vivir, an Indigenous and communal concept of the good life, as a pedagogical framework. Michael organizes and collaborates with Voces y Manos,...
Dennis joined the Center for Latin American Studies as a Graduate Affiliate in 2022 as he advances his interdisciplinary work and graduate research from the perspective of an economic geographer working at the intersection of fire ecology and decision. His most recent work is framed by considering historic immigration policies, operational decisions, labor and resource management in landscapes across fire ecologies of North America. Previously Dennis has worked as a policy analyst at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at the International Energy Agency, engaged in...
Ángela received her B.A. in Anthropology from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá) and an M.Sc. in Geography from the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá). In 2015, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue her doctoral studies in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Before coming to Cal, she was a social researcher at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Universidad de los Andes, and the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia (Icanh).
Mônica Gimenes (she/her) is a feminist researcher of contemporary Latin American literature and cultures. Her doctoral dissertation foregrounds the aesthetic dimensions of the political work combating feminicidal violence in recent novels and short stories from Brazil and Argentina. She is also a translator and an award-winning instructor of Portuguese and Spanish languages and literature. Mônica holds an M.A. in Spanish and a B.A. in Multimedia Studies: Journalism from Florida Atlantic University.
Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies
Patricia de Nóbrega Gomes is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, with a Designated Emphasis in Women and Gender Studies. Her research is on contemporary Black and Indigenous artists in Brazil working in performance, mixed-media, sculpture, and photography. Her research interests also include Black Studies, Performance Theory, Feminist Theory, and Critical Indigenous Studies. Her dissertation, "Geo-corporeal Politics of Performance and Feminist Strategies in Brazil," focuses on the contemporary...
Angela Pastorelli-Sosa is Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She works on modern and contemporary art of the Americas, with a focus on conceptual and mixed media practices that engage colonial legacies, histories of migration, and the mutability of identity. Her dissertation, “X Marks the Spot: Latinx Artists Mapping Space,” focuses on four Latinx-identifying artists whose works consider historical and cultural material objects as entry points for linking overdetermined constructions of geographies to essentialized notions of...
Everardo Reyes (Rarámuri and Chicanx) is a fourth-year doctoral student in Music (Ethnomusicology) whose research focuses on the intersections between music, social movements, and Indigenous self-determination. His dissertation research focuses specifically on the contemporary sonic and political influences of the 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz Island by Indians of All Tribes on Indigenous social movements. Ever holds his BA (2017, University of Northern Colorado) and MA (2019, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) in Sociology, as well as an MA (2021) in Music (Ethnomusicology)...
Alice is a Ph.D. candidate in the Berkeley School of Education. An interdisciplinary social scientist and ethnographer, she studies youth identity formation and political development/ civic engagement; education and social movements; language, literacy, and learning practices across in-person and digital spaces; and interconnections between local and global structures of oppression and resistance. Her dissertation is a multi-sited ethnographic study that examines the unprecedented rise of youth movements in Brazil and has been supported by grants and fellowships including the Fulbright-...