New Cabell Hall 436

On fellowship academic year 2024-25

Education

Ph.D. in Caribbean and Latin American Cultural Studies, University of Virginia (May 2025)
M.A. in Spanish, University of Virginia, 2022
Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
M.A. in Creative Writing, Pompeu Fabra University, 2016
B.S. in Psychology, Carlos Albizu University, 2015
A.S. in Social Sciences, Essex County College, 2013

Dissertation Project

My dissertation, “Sites of Freedom: Caribbean Art, Gender and the Politics of Space,” examines feminist approximations to space in 20th and 21st-century visual cultural production from the Caribbean and its diasporas. It considers how contemporary Caribbean women and queer artists use their creative platforms to disrupt the cartographies of colonial modernity and imagine radical forms of geographic freedom. Each chapter attends to a traditional space of domination — the colonial map, body, domestic, and built environment — to argue that Caribbean women’s geographical imagination has played a vital role in reconfiguring and dismantling Western practices of racial, sexual, and spatial oppression. Through the analysis of visual art, photography, oral history interviews, and archival sources (including personal papers, cartographic maps, and architectural plans), and using feminist and decolonial theories and methods, I study how Caribbean artists grapple with different sites where gendered and racialized spatial oppression materializes. More importantly, I examine how these artists use their creative practices to imagine and build, or to site, spaces of freedom. This project focuses on the Caribbean and its diasporas because of the regions’ foundational position as the site where Western-masculine configurations of gender, race and space were first established in the Americas. While studies of Caribbean cultural production have made important contributions to the analysis of the region’s artistic landscapes, “Sites of Freedom” moves in new directions by centering the creative praxis of Black and brown Caribbean women and queer artists, situating their cultural interventions at the forefront of feminist and geographic thought.

Research Interests

• 20th-21st Century Caribbean, Afro-diasporic and Latinx Arts & Cultures
• Black and Brown Feminist Geographies
• Visual Culture & Performance Studies
• Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies
• Race & Ethnicity Studies

Peer-Reviewed Articles

"Curating Transnational Feminist Solidarities in Born in Flames: Feminist Futures." Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, vol 24, no. 2 (forthcoming, Fall 2025). 

Conference Presentations

Panels Organized

• Chair and Organizer, “Transnational Feminisms in the Contemporary Américas,” Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California. January 2023.

Papers Presented

• “The Community Engagement, Digital Projects, and Care Work of the Diaspora Solidarities Lab,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, November 2024.
• “Stillness as Feminist Praxis: Quotidian Fugitivity in the Work of Myrna Báez and Mónica Hernández,” Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present - ASAP/14, Seattle, Washington, October 2023.
• “Unmaking the Map: Firelei Báez’s Cartographies of Resistance and Fugitivity,” Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation - Graduate Students Presentations, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, October 2023.
• “The Artist as Mapmaker: Feminist Cartographies in Contemporary Caribbean Art,” Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars Conference, San José and Limón, Costa Rica, June 2023.
• “Curating Transnational Feminist Solidarities in Born in Flames: Feminist Futures,” Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California, January 2023.
• “Alternative Cartographies: Remapping Landscape, Women and History in the Work of Edwidge Danticat,” Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, March 2022.
• “The Power of Images: Learning Culture with Visual Texts in the Contemporary L2 Classroom,” Institute of World Languages Roundtable Series, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, November 2021.

Grants, Fellowships and Awards

• Diaspora Solidarities Lab Fellowship, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Higher Learning Grant. 2023-present.
• Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship in Caribbean Literatures, Arts and Cultures, University of Virginia. 2020-present.
• Dean’s Diversity Doctoral Fellowship, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,
  University of Virginia. 2020-present.
• Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Dissertation Summer Research Grant. 2024.
• Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) Graduate Research Grant. 2024.
• Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Dissertation Research Grant, University of Virginia. 2023.
• Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation Graduate Global Research Grant, University of Virginia. 2023.
• Charles Gordon Reid Summer Travel Fellowship, Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, University of Virginia. 2023.
• Del Greco Annual Essay Prize for “Alternative Cartographies: Remapping Landscape, Women and History in the Work of Edwidge Danticat,” Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, University of Virginia. 2021.
• Summer Research Grant, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia. 2020.
• Distinction of excellence, Creative Writing Master’s Final Project, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. 2016.
• B.S. in Psychology Distinguished Student Medal (class Valedictorian), Carlos Albizu University. 2015.
• Dominican Heritage Student Grant, Carlos Albizu University. 2014.
• Hispanic Heritage Andres V. Cubero Memorial Scholarship, Essex County College. 2013.
• William Blades / ESL Scholarship, Bilingual Department, Essex County College. 2013.

Teaching Experience

Instructor of Record

Spring 2024 - Text and Interpretation (SPAN 3300), Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, University of Virginia.

Fall 2023 - Advanced Grammar and Composition II (SPAN 3020), Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, University of Virginia.

Fall 2022 & Spring 2023 - Advanced Grammar and Composition I (SPAN 3010), Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, University of Virginia.

Fall 2021 & Spring 2022 - Intermediate Spanish (SPAN 2010), Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, University of Virginia.

Professional Development

June-August 2023 - PhD+ Writing Op-Eds Workshop Series, University of Virginia.

August 1-4, 2022 - PhD+ Graduate Instructor Seminar on the Teaching of Writing, University of Virginia.

2021-present - Member, “Black Feminist Reading Group,” funded by the Kohler Seminars Grant, Department of English, University of Virginia.

Service

Department
Fall 2021 - Spring 2023 - Member, Graduate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, University of Virginia.

Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

Fall 2022 - Spring 2023 - Representative, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Student Council, University of Virginia.

Fall 2022 - “Why Graduate Education Matters,” UVA Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.