Erica Alemdar

Erica Alemdar, originally from Detroit, received her B.A. in Spanish and Communication from DePaul University, Chicago. While at DePaul, she was awarded a research grant used to complete her undergraduate thesis on representations of beauty in Spanish fairy tales. After graduation, Erica worked for the Smithsonian’s Center of Folklife and Cultural Heritage, followed by an academic year at the Universidad de Sevilla as a student and AuPair. Outside of academia, Erica enjoys board games, reading, film, video games and outdoor activities.

Alison Atkins

Alison Atkins is a second year PhD student originally from New Jersey. She received her BA in Spanish and Mathematics from Wake Forest University in 2005, and spent her fall semester of 2003 studying in Salamanca. After receiving her MA in Spanish literature here at UVA, she taught English in beautiful Granada in 2008 before returning to Virginia to pursue her PhD. Alison’s research interests include contemporary Spanish and Latin American short fiction and poetry, particularly in relation to the visual arts. In her free time, Alison enjoys practicing yoga, running, hiking, traveling, and cooking.

Anna Banerjea

Anna Banerjea is a second year Masters student originally from Massachusetts. She graduated from Wake Forest University in 2008 with a B.A. in Spanish and minors in Sociology and Dance. She also received a certificate in Interpreting. Growing up Anna lived in Madrid for 4 years, which sparked her interest in Spanish-related studies. In 2006 she spent a semester studying in Salamanca and in 2007 she spent a summer traveling through Spain to study flamenco dance and history. Anna has been dancing since she was three years old and has continued this interest here in Charlottesville, performing with Miki Liszt Dance Co., InFlux dance and the UVa Dance Department. Anna is also a bit of a Spanish film junkie.

Jennifer Barlow

Jennifer Barlow is a first-year M.A. student and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia with a degree in Spanish and a minor in Astronomy. During her time at UVa, Jennifer spent a semester in Valencia, Spain and participated in the Distinguished Majors Program. Her research interests include early modern and modern peninsular literature, particularly the poetry of Luis de Góngora and the Generation of 27 poets. In her free time, Jennifer enjoys writing poetry, stargazing, dancing what she remembers of the flamenco she learned, and cooking.

Cabell Belk

Cabell is a first year MA student originally from Charlotte, NC. She graduated from Princeton University in 2007 with a BA in English. She is thrilled to be studying Spanish at UVA, and is especially interested in contemporary Latin American fiction. She is looking forward to teaching next year.

Tamara Bjelland

Tammy Bjelland, from Fairfax, VA, is a PhD Candidate in Spanish Literature. A 2005 departmental Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant award winner, at UVA she has taught Elementary Spanish, Grammar Review, Advanced Grammar and Composition, and grammar and culture classes in the Summer Language Institute. She has also taught Intermediate Spanish, Literary Analysis, Composition and Translation at UVA’s Hispanic Studies in Spain program in Valencia. During the 2006-2007 school year she was the In-Residence Director of the Casa Bolívar and the Mallard administrator. She is currently working on her dissertation, “Loss in the Family in Contemporary Spanish Fiction”.

Sarah Bogard

Megan Bosch

Megan graduated December 2006 from St. Lawrence University. She studied in Spain (2004-2005) where she taught English to 3rd and 5th graders in a private elementary school and Costa Rica (Spring 2006). She took a job in commercial real estate in NYC with Cushman & Wakefield prior to enrolling in the University. Megan is an equestrian and has a horse named Bandit. She just bought a house in Palmyra that she is turning into an equestrian property. Megan is most interested in the Latin American novel, especially those written about/taking place during revolution. Her senior thesis was based on on three novels written about the Nicaraguan Revolution.

Miranda Braithwaite

Miranda Lea Braithwaite studied neuroscience and Spanish literature at the University of Wisconsin, and graduated with a B.S. in 2008. While studying at Wisconsin she spent a summer in Buenos Aires, Argentina on a fellowship doing field research for a paper entitled “A Contest of Memory: The Commemoration Debate in Post-Authoritarian Argentina,” and spent her last semester studying in Spain at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Miranda is currently pursuing a M.A. here at UVA, and is interested in Borges, studies of post-traumatic memory in the Southern Cone, and contemporary Latin American fiction.

Davina Buivan Kotanchik

A Ph.D. student, Davina holds an M.A. in Foreign Languages (Spanish and French), from George Mason University; and an M.A. in International Affairs (International Economics and Energy, Environment, Science and Technology) from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Cornell University , where she earned a B.A. in Government. She has studied in Avignon and Geneva. In addition to Spanish, Davina speaks Thai, French, Russian, and Vietnamese. After performing policy analysis, business management, and market research in a variety of high-tech industries, she followed her passion for foreign literatures and cultures into academia. In 2007, Davina served as Assistant Director of GMU's summer program in Paris. She has taught French at GMU and Spanish and French at Northern Virginia Community College and is now teaching Spanish at UVA. Her research interests include: the influence of Émile Zola's Rougon-Macquart on Latin American literature, the Paris rite of passage of Latin American intellectuals, and literary representations of nationhood, capitalism, and technology. Davina is an adventurous eater, cook, and world traveler. She enjoys dancing to Latin American and African music, particularly salsa and soukous, and practicing yoga.

Adriana Campbell

Adriana is a second year MA student of Ecuadorian and Colombian heritage. She received a BA with honors in Latin American Studies and a second concentration Literature from American University. Before beginning her graduate studies she taught all levels of Spanish, including AP and Conversation and Composition, at the secondary level. At UVa she teaches SPA 201 and 202. Among other endeavors, she worked at as intern at the Embassy of Chile, translated articles and documents for Pfizer, and worked as an Ecology Director at a camp. Adriana also serves as an administrative assistant and instructor for the Peru Program where she teaches Conversation and Literary Analysis. In her spare time, Adriana enjoys to run, hike, and write fiction.

Anthony Cella

Tony Cella is a second year PhD student at UVA. He graduated from the College of Charleston in May of 2006 with a Spanish major and a minor in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He spent his junior year studying Hispanic Philology at La Universidad de Sevilla. In April of 2006, Tony participated in a model assembly of the Organization of American States in the Dominican Republic where he represented the government of Trinidad and Tobago. After college he went on to receive his masters from Middlebury College after studying in Madrid and Guadalajara, Mexico. His principal literary interest is modern Latin American literature –and especially Mexican– related to globalization. Other academic interests include Latin American politics, the mafia in the United States and Ethiopian history.

Tiziano Cherubini

Tiziano Cherubini is a native from Vetralla, Italy. He received his B.A. in Foreign Languages and Literatures from the University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy. From 2004 to 2007 he taught Italian language and culture at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Tiziano's academic interests include 19th and 20th century Italian literature, il Decadentismo, the Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli and the Italian Risorgimento as seen through the eyes of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa in his novel Il Gattopardo. Tiziano speaks English, French and Spanish and in 2003 he wrote and illustrated Maxwell in Italy, a children's book that he translated from Italian into the three languages. In his free time, he enjoys going to the movies, drawing, reading, writing poetry, taking photographs and traveling.

Germán De Patricio

Germán De Patricio, born in Cádiz (Spain), has spent most of his life in Madrid. He studied Filología Hispánica at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and spent an Erasmus-year at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands), and lived another year in Amsterdam. Received his M.A. in Spanish Literature from Purdue University (Indiana). He has translated three Dutch novels (Connie Palmen) into Spanish for Editorial Debate, worked as interpreter English-Dutch-Spanish, as radio speaker, as journalist in a newspaper, and as high school teacher of Spanish Literature in Madrid and Tarifa. Has been playing guitar since 14, and has published several short stories. First PhD year in UVA, where he plans to devote himself to his specialization, Golden Age Spanish Literature. Loves seafood and Fútbol Club Barcelona. Yet what would make him really happy is to be of some benefit to others. Helping others is not that easy. If you think it is, go ask Don Quijote and Andrés el cabrero, if you know what I mean...

Fátima Fajardo

Fátima Fajardo was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and moved to Granada when she was fourteen. She completed there the first years of Filología Hispánica, which she finished at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. At the Complutense she then obtained an MA in Spanish as a Second Language. The AECI (Agencia de Cooperación Internacional, from the Spanish Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores) selected her to teach Spanish language and culture at the University of Debrecen, in Hungary. In her free time, she likes to travel and to be with family and friends. She enjoys especially seeing how her two year old son Kevin discovers the world every day. Her focus of interest is twentieth century Spanish and Latin American literature. Recently, she taught Spanish for the Summer Language Institute. Fátima is in her second year of Phd Studies at UVA.

David Fernandez Diaz

David was born and raised in Barcelona, Spain and currently is a second-year PhD student. He received his B.A. in Philology at the University Rovira i Virgili (dependant of the University of Barcelona) in 2003. In 2007 he received a Masters degree in Cognitive Science and Language at the University of Barcelona but his passion for literature and culture definitely changed his academic / life path. He moved in 2006 to Binghamton, NY to pursue a new Masters degree in Spanish literature, a program that he finished in 2008. Currently he is teaching Grammar Review and his main academic interest is 19th century Spanish Literature. Apart from reading, he loves photography, music and architecture.

Rachel Finney

Rachel holds a BA from the University of Tennessee and an MA from the University of Arkansas. She has been living in Virginia for several years and is employed full-time at Richard Bland College in Petersburg, VA where she enjoys teaching Spanish to undergrads. She loves living in Virginia and experiencing all the history, nature, and culture that the state has to offer. When she is not teaching or taking classes toward the PhD at UVA, she enjoys travelling with her students on academic trips abroad and in the past has either led or co-led such trips to Spain, France, Italy, Costa Rica, and Brazil.

Morgan Fisher

Morgan Fisher, born in New York but raised in the Garden State, discovered her passion for all things Spanish after meeting some amazing ticos during a family vacation to Costa Rica in 1998. After studying abroad for a semester in Sevilla, Spain she received her B.A. from West Chester University with a major in Spanish. She completed her M.A. at Florida State University where she enjoyed the beautiful, warm weather year round but found it a bit distracting while having to sit inside and study for her Master’s exams. Growing up in a country setting has made Morgan an outdoor enthusiast who enjoys hiking, biking, kayaking, and pretty much anything else you can do outside. She is also an animal lover and has a little Maltese named Chico. In her spare time she enjoys cooking, playing piano, and seeing live music. She is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Virginia, specializing in Contemporary Peninsular literature, with a focus on women writers. She hopes to one day teach literature courses in a warm climate where there is no snow.

Amy Frazier-Yoder

Amy Frazier-Yoder completed her undergraduate in journalism and Spanish at Washington and Lee University in 1999 and went on to work as a journalist for several years. She completed her M.A. in Spanish Literature at the University of Virginia in 2004. She has worked as an administrator for the UVa Program in Perú, and has frequently travelled to Latin America. She currently teaches a survey of modern Latin American literature and a course in composition as a lecturer at the University of Virginia. She is completing her dissertation, which is titled "Character Creators: Authors, Gods, Scientist and Lovers." In her free time, she enjoys doing volunteer work, reading, cooking, and spending time with friends and family.

Diana F. Galarreta

Diana F. Galarreta was born in Perú. She received her B.A. in Spanish Literature from Universidad Católica in Lima. She is especially interested in medieval and early modern peninsular literature. Diana is currently pursuing a M.A. here at UVA, and enjoys specially reading Gongora and Pedro Salinas. She is teaching Span 201 this semester and really taking pleasure in it. During her two years after college, she worked teaching Spanish Language and Literature in Peru. She likes to spend time with her friends and colleagues, as well as cine and jogging.

Michelle Garber

Michelle Garber is studying for her Masters in Italian literature. She received her B.A. from the University of Notre Dame where she majored in both Philosophy and Italian literature. In the fall of 2007, Michelle studied in Rome at John Cabot University and spent the summer of 2009 as an au pair in Palermo. Michelle is particularly interested in medieval literature, creative autobiography, and the intersection of philosophy and literature. In her free time Michelle enjoys oil painting, hiking, and stargazing.

Diane Gigantino Baltz

Diane Gigantino Baltz received her B.A. in Spanish and International Studies from the University of Richmond in December 2002 and completed an M.A. in Spanish Literature at UVA in May 2005. Diane has taught Spanish 101, 102, 106 and Culture in the Spanish Summer Language Institute at UVA. After spending the summer in Lima, Peru, she is currently teaching Spanish 201. In her (rather limited) free time Diane enjoys cooking, running, reading, salsa dancing, indulging her love of "Buffy", and spending time with friends. Diane also a graduate student representative to the Honor Committee.

Alejandra Gutiérrez

Alejandra Gutiérrez is from Venezuela. She obtained a degree in journalism in 1998 at Caracas' Catholic University Andrés Bello. For the following five years, she studied drama and ran her own theater group while she worked as a journalist in Caracas. Alejandra is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Virginia. Her main area of interest is contemporary Latin American literature, especially from Mexico, Chile and Argentina. Currently she is working on her dissertation, which focuses on the character of the writer in novels by Roberto Bolaño, Pedro Ángel Palou, Leonardo Valencia and Enrique Vila-Matas. She also has been an active member of the Spanish Theater Group at UVa as an actress and a producer.

Gladys Guzman

Gladys Guzman

Nicole Halloran

Nicole Halloran is a resident of Virginia. She holds a B.A. in International Affairs and a minor in Italian from the University of Mary Washington. She is a first year M.A. candidate in the Italian program at UVa. Her areas of interests include 14th and 15th century literature, the Risorgimento and Italian National Identity. She speaks English, Italian, and French and would like to learn Russian, Arabic and Portuguese. When she is not pursuing her Master’s degree in Italian Language and literature, she stays abreast on all aspects of foreign affairs, including Human Rights and Peace Conflict Resolution. She hopes one day to use her language ability to affect change and bridge the cultural divide between societies.

Katie Haney

Katie Haney is a second year MA student who is originally from Northern Virginia. She completed her undergraduate work at UVA with a BA in Spanish and English while spending a summer abroad in Valencia, Spain. Her interests are twentieth century Latin American and Spanish literature. Katie is currently teaching 1010 and has taught 1060 in past semesters. In her free time, she enjoys salsa dancing, reading, and spending time outdoors.

Faith Harden

After graduating in 2002 from Hollins University where she studied Spanish and Art History, Faith worked various odd jobs, including stints at a sod farm in rural Virginia and at a small language school in Barcelona, Spain. Currently in the fourth year of the PhD program, Faith has taught several Spanish language and literature classes, including a survey course on Medieval and Early Modern Spanish literature and a culture class in the Summer Language Institute. In addition to various administrative and tech support positions, she has also served the department as Graduate Representative to the Faculty. Her research interests include Golden Age poetry, the comedia, comparative literature, literary theory, and gender studies. Recently she received a grant from UVa’s Society of Fellows to perform archival research in Spain’s Biblioteca Nacional; the unpublished poems she discovered there will form an integral part of her dissertation, tentatively titled “Golden Age Subjectivities: Poetics and Practices of the Self in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Spanish Literature.”

Ryan Johnson

Ryan is an MA student from Allentown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 2006, with a BA in Spanish and Economics. Between his junior and senior years of college he spent time in Buenos Aires, Argentina, volunteering as a translator. Upon graduating, he taught English for a year in Santiago, Chile, before deciding to attend the University of Virginia. Ryan currently teaches 1060, and is interested in modern Latin America fiction, especially from the Southern Cone.

Katherine Karr-Cornejo

KKatherine Karr-Cornejo received a B.A with honors from Washington University in St Louis, where she participated in a seminar on Cuba and studied in Santiago, Chile. She received an M.A in Spanish from UVA in 2007, focusing her thesis on the representations of the “roto” in twentieth-century Chilean writing. Her current academic interests include intersectionality in contemporary Chilean literary discourse, urban space, and feminist literary theory. She is currently working on her dissertation, which deals with the Chilean historical novel of the past twenty years. Katherine's teaching experience includes all levels of grammar classes, as well as the culture component of the Summer Language Institute. She has also taught a conversation course based on Latin American film.

Ashley Kerr

Ashley Elizabeth Kerr graduated from Middlebury College in May 2006 with a degree in Latin American Studies. During her time at Middlebury, she studied abroad for a year at the Universidad de Playa Ancha en Valparaíso, Chile. Since then, she has lived in a small town in Argentine Patagonia for a year, finished the MA reading list and beaten comps, and spent a summer teaching in Valencia, Spain. Now in the 1st year of the PhD program, Ashley looks forward to continuing exploring Charlottesville while tackling the next reading list. In any free time she chances to have, she enjoys hiking, biking and practicing being domestic so as to one day give Martha Stewart a run for her money.

Lauren Klos

Lauren Klos, originally from the Philadelphia area, received her B.A./M.S. in Spanish Literature and Culture from Georgetown University in the Fall of 2007. In the Spring of 2006 she studied at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain, falling in love for the second time with the language, literature, culture and way of life in Spain. She is pursuing her Ph.D. in Spanish, connecting the idea of palmipsests with the evolution of the image and audience perception of Don Quixote. In her spare time she loves to bake, read, travel, tutor children in ESL and explore different locales on foot. Most recently she spent a month in Seville, Spain touring with American teenagers, encouraging them to soak up the culture as well as the sun.

Jeannie LaPlatney

Jeannie LaPlatney, a native of Connecticut, received her undergraduate degree in Spanish and English Literatures from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1999 and her Master's in Spanish Literature from UVa in 2004. A third-year in the PhD program, she has studied in Mexico, Spain and most recently in Guatemala. She currently teaches Spanish 411, Advanced Grammar and Composition, but has taught 313, Spanish Culture and Conversation, 311, Advanced Grammar Review and various courses at the 100 and 200 levels. Here research interests include performance in oral narratives and other medieval and Golden Age topics. When not reading Spanish literature, she enjoys cooking, hiking, watching ACC basketball and spending time with friends.

Pedro Larrea

Pedro Larrea (Madrid, Spain, 1981) is a Spanish poet and graduate student. He received his _Licenciatura_ in Theory of Literature and Comparative Literature from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) where he also studied Spanish Philology. He got his Master in Spanish from UVA, and he is currently working on his Ph.D. He has taught Introductory Spanish, Intermediate Spanish, Advanced Spanish, Spanish Composition and Spanish Literary Analysis. He has enjoyed the Charles Gordon Reid Jr. scholarship to do research on modern and contemporary Spanish poetry. He has been Director in-residence for the Spanish House Casa Bolivar. He has participated in the UVA program abroad in Valencia. He collaborates with the UVA Spanish Theater Company. He will be teaching for Semester at Sea in summer 2010. His main focus is Spanish, Latin American and World Poetry. Reading, writing and travelling are his true passions. His poems have been published in several literary magazines in Spain, such as ABCD, _Calidoscopio_, Lateral, _Deriva_, _Fósforo_,_ Generación XXI_… He has performed poetry in Spain, Italy and the United States.

Alicia López Operé

Alicia López Operé comes from Madrid, Spain, where she received her B.A. in Spanish Linguistics and Literature (“licenciatura”) from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2001. She has also studied in summer programs in Paris, Porto, and Salvador de Bahia. Her teaching experience includes 101, 201, 202, 311 (Grammar Review), 313 (Conversation and Culture), 314 (Business Spanish), 330 (Literary Analysis), and 411 (Advanced Grammar and Composition) in addition to teaching at the University of Valencia (Spain) with the University of Virginia's study abroad program, and for Semester at Sea (Summer 2007). She received her MA degree from UVA in 2004 and she is currently a Ph. D. candidate (ABD) in Spanish Literature concentrating in 20th-21th-century Spanish poetry. The title of her dissertation is “Poetas de la democracia. Poesía española en el siglo XXI”. She has acted in various independent theatre groups at her University in Madrid and now she is an active member of the Spanish Theatre Group at UVA, as well as a participant in the Spanish Poetry Workshop at the Spanish Department at UVA.

Angeli Leal

Angeli Leal is from Weehawken, NJ. She received a B.A. in Comparative Literature (Spanish and English) from Barnard College in 2005 and a M.A. in Spanish from the University of Virginia in 2007. She loves teaching and has taught 106, 201 and 202. She has also been an instructor in the Summer Language Institute at UVA. She is currently working on her PhD coursework. When she's not too busy with work, she enjoys practicing yoga, watching movies, and spending time with her friends.

Allison Libbey

Originally from central Pennsylvania, Allison received her BA in Spanish and International Studies from the University of Richmond in 2007 and her MA in Spanish from UVA in 2009. She has lived and studied in Pamplona, Spain and in Ferrara, Italy as well as having worked an internship in Graz, Austria. While at UVA, Allison has worked on a variety of projects outside of class, including creating the English subtitles for “La raza,” a film from Franco era Spain, and transcribing interviews with female Salvadoran community organizers for the Women’s Center. Now in her first year of the PhD program, Allison is hoping to eventually focus her studies upon the cultural and literary impact of theatrical and cinematic representations of civil wars in various Spanish speaking countries. Outside of school, her interests include cooking, singing, and enjoying the many ethnic restaurants Charlottesville has to offer. She is the proud owner of a fantastic cat, one that enjoys napping upon her research whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Luis Lucas

Luis is an MA student originally from Caracas, Venezuela. Since moving from Venezuela, he's lived in Miami, New York and Denver. He graduated from Columbia University in 2008 with a BA in Economics and Hispanic Studies. He is interested in modern Latin American fiction and film. Luis enjoys cycling and golf whenever possible, though he spends most of his spare time living the rugby lifestyle.

Zach Ludington

Zach is from Maryland and did his undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is currently teaching conversational English in Nice, France, but has vowed not to swap out Charlottesville for the Côte d’Azur. The year in Nice is only the latest link in a chain of delectable opportunities he has had at UVa. During his two years of the MA he acted in the department’s theater group, taught every level of Spanish from 101 to 202 (some more than once) and taught in the UVa in Valencia program during the summer. When he returns in the fall of 2010 he will undertake PhD coursework. His first loves in Spanish letters were the plays of Lope and Calderón, but the Romantics command more of his attention now. Change was the name of the game for them and it wasn’t easy, but after all their anguish we know “change is golden, effervescent, hilarious.” That’s probably why Zach keeps moving.

Mary Ann Lugo

I am a first-year master's student, born in Colombia but I grew up traveling thanks to itinerant parents. I received my BA from the University of Virginia in 1999 in Comparative Lit. and after graduation spent a year living in La Paz, Bolivia, where I fell in love with Lake Titicaca and the Andean altiplano. For the past six years I worked at the electronic publishing division of the UVa. Press, helping to turn volumes and volumes of Dolley Madison, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson's correspondences into digital publications for posterity. I'm thrilled to be back in school pursuing studies close to my heart. I'm a fan of all things Latin American, a secret admirer of astronomers, a classical guitar groupie, and a happy aunt to my cute little niece Emilia and my cool nephew, Diego.

Juan Martinez-Millan

Juan is a second-year Master's candidate at UVA, where he has taught Spanish 106, 201 and 202. He grew up in Andalusia and received the Licenciatura in Filología Hispánica from the University of Seville. He is enjoying becoming better acquainted with the wonderful people and places of the United States.

Sara Mattavelli

Sara Mattavelli is a native from Milan, Italy. She holds a BA and an MA in Foreign Languages and Communication Sciences with a major in English and Spanish from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan). She studied abroad at Universidad de Alicante (Spain), and at Sungkyunkwan University (South Korea). She worked as an English teacher in Italy, and taught Italian at Scripps College in California. Sara is currently teaching and pursuing her MA in Italian Literature at UVA. Her interests include modern and contemporary Italian literature, films, cultural studies, and foreign language pedagogy. In her free time she listens to music, spends hours on the Internet, and travels. Her motto is: if you never try, you’ll never know!

Tim McCallister

Tim McCallister holds a B.A. in English from Furman University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Outside the masters program, he serves as the piano accompanist for the Virginia Consort Youth Chorale and Prelude Choir. He grew up in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

Natalie McManus

Natalie Jane McManus was born in Pittsburgh, PA but spent her life living in both Pittsburgh and Virginia Beach. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2006 with a B.A. in Spanish. She minored in Portuguese and holds a Certificate in Latin American studies. She graduated from UVa with a M.A. in Spanish in 2008 and is continuing into the doctorate program. She also studied in Cuernavaca, Mexico and Valparaiso, Chile. She loves music, food, and exercise among other things.

Gabrielle Miller

Gaby is a first year M.A. student originally from the northern Virginia area. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of Notre Dame, earning a B.A. in both Spanish literature and Political Science. During her junior year of college, she spent six months living with a wonderful host family in Santiago, Chile. In her free time, Gaby enjoys Notre Dame football, all kinds of music, and good conversations.

Doug Mulliken

Doug Mulliken is a second year M.A. student. He is interested in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin American literature, as well as the more "pop culture" disciplines of cinema and rock/hip hop en español. He enjoys playing and watching soccer and listening to (almost) all types of music.

Ian Nicoll

Ian Nicoll is from Charlottesville, Virginia. After graduating from Mary Washington College in 2003 with a BA in International Affairs he decided to pursue an interest in travel by moving to Palma de Mallorca, Spain to get his CELTA certification. He then spent three years teaching ESL in Valencia, Spain and another year doing the same in Washington, D.C. He has done volunteer work in translation and interpretation and holds the DELE, nivel superior, from the Instituto Cervantes. His love for Spain, and Valencia in particular, prompted him to pursue his MA in Spanish and shifted his sights towards UVa. Ian is particularly interested in the Spanish Civil War and the post-war period. His other interests include Spanish film, soccer (Amunt Valencia!), and paella.

Janice North

Janice was born in Pennsylvania and received her BA in Spanish from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2005. She completed her Master’s at UVA in Spring 2009 and is continuing at Virginia for her doctoral studies. She has studied in Mexico, France and more recently participated in UVA’s Graduate Seminar in la Argentina. Her primary interests lie in Medieval and Golden Age Literature and the role of women in literature, both as characters as well as authors. She is also interested in comparative literature, translation and the cultural functions of literature.

Renata Palermo

Renata Palermo was born in Italy and earned a “laurea” in Scienze della Comunicazione in her hometown, Catania. After moving to Milan, she was accepted by the Collegio di Milano and obtained an MA in Culture e Linguaggi per la Comunicazione, with a thesis on the literary panorama that grew out of the Second World War period. In 2007-2008 Renata was Italian Advisor and Teaching Assistant at Dartmouth College. Currently she is a second year MA graduate student at University of Virginia studying Italian literature and teaching Italian. In May 2009 she has been a speaker at the American Association of Italian Studies annual conference with the paper “Il Gattopardo: una rivoluzione senza fine perché tutto rimanga com’è.”. The same work has been published in the fifth volume of the UCLA journal Carte Italiane. Renata’s research interests are on modern and contemporary Italian literature and cinema.

Desiree Peña

Desiree Peña is a first year MA student of Cuban descent who can now say she has lived several places along the East coast. She graduated from the University of Florida in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Spanish. During her undergraduate career, she studied abroad in Seville, and it forever rerouted her academic career. Upon graduating from UF, she moved to Madrid and taught English for two years. Desiree is mainly interested in topics related to 20th century Peninsular literature, and Cuban literature and political writings. Her hobbies include watching films, running, dancing, learning Italian, and she is quite addicted to traveling.

Gillian Price

Gillian Price received a B.A. in Spanish from Carleton College in Northfield Minnesota. While studying at Carleton, she spent one semester studying abroad in Madrid, Spain. Her senior year she worked as a Teaching Assistant for Spanish 101 and 102. Her undergraduate thesis is titled: Otra Maldita Novela Sobre La Guerra Civil Espanola: The Contemporary Publishing Boom on the Theme of the Spanish Civil War. She is currently pursuing her master's degree at UVA. Her academic interests include 20th and 21st century Peninsular Literature and film.

Eleonora Raspi

Eleonora Raspi was born in Volterra, a small 4.000 year-old city in Tuscany. Growing up in an area filled with symbols of the ancient history gave her a personal "forma mentis" that actually makes her think that a historic and cultural event is not isolated, but it is influenced by several factors and and it influences at the same time its overall context. She graduated in Contemporary Art History at Catholic Univesrity of Milan in 2007 and she had many working experiences in managing cultural events (i.e she worked for two years in o'artoteca, Artists in Residence Program in Milano) and teaching Italian as a foreign language. Her reaserch mainly focuses on contemporary drama and visual art, and Italian 20th Century literature.

Miguel Rivera

Miguel Rivera was born in Perú. He received his B.A. in Spanish Literature from Universidad Católica in Lima and his M.A. from Tulane University, in New Orleans, before beginning his PhD studies at UVa in 2006. His teaching experience includes 100 and 200 levels in Spanish. He is particularly interested in Jorge Luis Borges, detective fiction and, more recently, Felipe Pardo y Aliaga, a Peruvian playwright of the 19th century. He loves good movies, The Smiths, Velvet Underground and soccer.

Eunice Rojas

Eunice Rojas received her B.A. in Spanish and Classics from Emory University. She also holds an M.A. in Spanish Linguistics from the University of Georgia, a J.D. from the University of Puerto Rico and a Licenciatura en Derecho from the University of Barcelona and is a member of the State Bar of Georgia. Presently, she is finishing up the coursework for the Ph.D. in Latin American Literature with a focus on the theme of madness in 20th-century narrative. For fun, she enjoys waking up at 5 a.m. on Saturdays to go running for a few hours.

Karliana Sakas

Karliana Sakas is a doctoral student with a Master's degree in Spanish from the University of Virginia. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Sweet Briar College, where she majored in Spanish and History and also enjoyed studying Turkish, German and archaeology. Karliana loves teaching Spanish to UVA's bright, engaged undergraduate students.

Adele Sanna

Adele Sanna was born in Barletta, Italy. She received her BA in Foreign Languages and Literatures (English and German) at University of Siena and her MA in Editing at University for Foreigners in Siena. During her time in Siena she volunteered with a cultural organization by teaching Italian to immigrants. Also, she collaborated as journalist and member of the editorial staff of a local newspaper. In 2007, she taught Italian in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and she learnt Spanish. In 2008, she was Visiting Instructor of Italian at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. She is currently teaching and pursuing her MA in Italian at UVA. Her interests include contemporary Italian literature, Latin-American studies and film studies. In her free time she loves reading, watching movies and talking to friends - better if in front of a good pizza and a good beer!

Rosa Mirna Sánchez

Rosa is a second-year PhD student. She was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York City. She has a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Barnard College and a Masters in Spanish from the University of Virginia. After getting her Bachelor’s in 2004, she worked at Scholastic, Inc. and at the Council of the Americas. Since starting graduate school in 2006, she has taught Accelerated Elementary Spanish, Intermediate Spanish, Grammar Review, Translation and Conversation Cinema Latin America. She has also taught at the UVa Hispanic Studies Program in Valencia, Spain. Her areas of interest include the Realist/Naturalist novel and contemporary Latin American and Caribbean literature.

Makenzie Seiple

Makenzie Seiple is from Greenville, PA, a small town in northwest Pennsylvania. She graduated from Gettysburg College in 2008 with a B.A. in Spanish and Art History. While at Gettysburg, she spent a semester studying in Seville, Spain, which fortified her desire to study Spanish history through its literature. She is especially interested in medieval and early modern peninsular literature. Her second love in languages is Latin, which she likes to pretend will come in handy someday. In her free time, she likes to read and sew.

Katia Sherman

I was born in Brazil, and came to the US at age eighteen to attend music school at Oberlin College. That was a little over twenty years ago. I have since undergone many musical incarnations, going from being an oboist to being specialized in Eighteenth Century Historical Performance. Having grown up speaking Portuguese, the Spanish language was always a curiosity to me, something that “the neighbors did, not us.” Once I put my hands on this most perfect of languages, it took away my soul, and I have done nothing ever since but to enjoy being soul-less in Spanish. I also enjoy music, especially Flamenco, and running, when Plantar Fasciitis actually allows me to run. My dog Tippy and my husband Tom are indeed what I love the most.

Stephen Silverstein

Stephen Silverstein graduated from Rutgers University in 2001 where he majored in Spanish. While completing his undergraduate degree, Stephen volunteered as a medical interpreter. He worked as a high school Spanish teacher before coming to UVa in 2005. Stephen enjoys hikes with his dog in his free time.

Andrea Smith

Andrea Smith graduated from the University of Virginia in 2005 with an M.A. in Spanish Literature and in 2000 with a B.A. in Spanish and an M.T. in Foreign Language Education from the Curry School. She taught all levels of high school language before coming back to UVa to pursue graduate degrees in Spanish literature. Her favorite interests are speaking Spanish, music, dance, travel, and spending time with friends. She plans to concentrate in 19th-century Latin American literature, and dreams of one day teaching a 20th century cinema-based conversation class, similar to the one she took with Professor Gies.

Anne Stachura

Anne Stachura is from Howell, Michigan. She attended the University of Michigan, and due to an interesting set of circumstances, she graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Spanish. After graduation, Anne spent 27 months as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ceguaca- Santa Bárbara, Honduras, where she worked primarily on the Child Survival and HIV/AIDS Prevention Project. She is currently pursuing her MA in Spanish and teaching SPAN 201 here at U.Va. She almost died alone of dengue in Honduras, so I guess you could say she's happy to be here.

Amy Wentworth

Amy Wentworth is from Bloomington, Indiana. She has an M.F.A. in Poetry from N.Y.U., and at U.V.A. she hopes to learn as much as she can about Spanish and Latin American poetry. In her free time, Amy likes to tapdance, cook, travel, clog, read, hike, go to the movies, and spend time with friends and family. She plans to spend next summer in Brazil.

Katherine Willcox

Katherine Willcox graduated from UVA with a bachelor's degree in Comparative Literature and Spanish in 2008. Her love for literature, theory, philosophy, ironic humor, Hispanic culture, and the Spanish language drove her to pursue her Masters in Spanish Literature. She is thrilled to be in a program with such brilliant, energetic, and compassionate professors and peers. In addition to teaching and studying, she also works as an administrative assistant and summer Spanish TA for the Philosophy Department's Peru Program in Lima, her favorite city, with a savvy coworker. In her copious free time, she enjoys relaxing with her family, running her dog, indulging in fine cuisine, engaging in good conversation, and simply savoring this absurdity we call life.

Sarah Witte

Sarah Witte is from central VA and is in her first year of the M.A. program. She received her B.A. from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, VA where she majored in Spanish and minored in education. During her senior year she student taught kindergarten and middle school Spanish. She has studied in Spain and Peru where she developed a love for traveling and culture. She enjoys reading naturalist works as well as modern Latin American literature. In her spare time, she enjoys movies, drawing, and painting.

Daniel Zimmerman

I'm from Lemoyne, Pennsylvania and graduated from Gettysburg College in 2006 with a BA in Spanish and a minor in Philosophy. During my undergrad years, I studied for a semester in Mendoza, Argentina, my favorite place in the world. I'm currently pursuing my MA but plan on continuing towards a PhD. My academic interests include Latin American literature and the theory and philosophy of literature. I'm teaching Span 201 this semester and really enjoying it. During my two years after college, I worked as a legal assistant at a workers' compensation law firm and as a translator for family group mediations. In my limited free time, I enjoy all kinds of sports, especially hockey, baseball and tennis, and watching football. I also enjoy fishing, hiking, music and movies.