Colorful houses on a hillside: Global Spotlight

Experts & Resources

These resources represent University of Minnesota faculty who are experts in the geographical areas of Latin America and the Caribbean and experts surrounding the impact of urbanization. To find more information on their current research, visit their faculty website link.

If you have a resource suggestion, please contact globalS@umn.edu.

Faculty Expertise

You may also download an Excel version of this list that is searchable and sortable.

Afanador Pujol, Angelica
Assistant Professor, Art History (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Pre-Columbian and early colonial art of the Americas
  • Currently researching "The Politics of Ethnicity: Re-imagining Indigenous Identities in The Sixteenth-Century “Relación de Michoacán (1538-1541)"

Andow, David
Professor, Entomology (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Insect resistance management, gene flow and its consequences, and non-target species effects and ecological risk assessment of biological stressors
  • Coordinator of the International Project on GMO Environmental Risk Assessment Methodologies (GMO ERA Project). International Delegate, Brazilian Entomological Society FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization)

Arenas, Fernando
Professor, Spanish & Portuguese (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Portuguese and Brazilian studies
  • Comparative interdisciplinary studies in the Portuguese-speaking world, popular music, film, literature, nationhood, post colonialism, globalization, sexuality and gender

Bender, Jeff
Associate Professor, Veterinary Public Health (AHC)
Email | Website
  • Expert areas: Veterinary medicine, animal health, foodborne illness, emerging diseases, food safety, and where animal health intersects with human health
  • One Health Proposal with CDC, Smithsonian, and Gorkas Institute, Panama (April 2009)
  • USDA-funded teaching on disease surveillance, Chile (March 2009)
  • Cooperative research project on Johne’s and Crohns disease, Bolivia and Uruguay (April, 2006)
  • Coordinate a Department of Education Grant (Student exchanges in veterinary medicine and public health) Brazil (June, 2004)
  • Training and education of veterinary students and assessment of public health strategies Bolivia (April, 2004)

Bolstad, Paul
Professor, Forest Resources (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Forests and forest conservation, Colombia
  • Tropical forest biology and conservation, Costa Rica
  • Fluent in Spanish

Brady, Linda
Professor, Food, Science and Nutrition (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Latino nutrition, , global issues, and immigrant populations

Cáceres, Juli "Jake"
Assistant Professor, Foreign Language and Literature (Duluth)
Email | Website
  • Spanish cultural studies, gender studies, Spanish film and literature

Cabrera, Vicente
Professor, Humanities, Spanish (Morris)
Email | Website
  • Contemporary novels from Spain and Latin America, contemporary Hispanic cinema

Castellanos, Bianet
Assistant Professor, American Studies (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Spanish cultural studies, gender studies, Spanish film and literature

Chambers, Sarah
Associate Professor, History (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Andean region, Colonial Latin American history
  • Concepts of citizenship, cultural and legal history, political transition in the city of Arequipa, Peru
  • Transition between the end of the colonial period and the formation of republican nations, women's history, Chile
  • Letters authored by women in 19th-century Latin America

Chollet, Donna
Associate Professor, Anthropology Discipline (Morris)
Email | Website
  • Sugarcane production, relations between mill owners and cane growers in/and Latin America.

Christian, Cindy
Assistant Professor, Educational Policy and Admin. (Duluth)
Email | Website
  • Latin American politics, women and politics
  • International relations, international political economy

Dejaeghere, Joan
Assistant Professor, Educational Policy and Admin. (CEHD)
Email | Website
  • International development policy and practice
  • Inequality, gender and education, intercultural and ethnic relations and education, civic identity and engagement and education.
  • Mexican immigrant youth experiences of citizenship in local and transnational contexts.

DiConstanzo, Alberto
Professor, Animal Science (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Nutrition and management factors affecting the biologic and economic efficiency of cow-calf and feedlot operations.
  • Evaluation of alternative feeds and feeding and management strategies to improve economic efficiency.
  • Determination of nutrient requirements to enhance economic and environmentally sustainable beef production.

Escure, Genevieve
Professor, English (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Belizean creole, endangered languages of Belize and Honduras
  • Sociolinguistics, pidgins, creoles and other contact languages

Face, Tim
Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Spanish phonetics and phonology

Farrell, Pat
Associate Professor, Geography (Duluth)
Email | Website
  • Soil and sediment analysis and its connection to people in both past and contemporary contexts with primary focus in Latin America and the Caribbean

Ferran, Ofelia
Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Contemporary Spanish peninsular literature and Spanish women writers
  • Exile literature, feminist theory, literary theory and criticism

Ferreira, Ana Paula
Professor, Spanish & Portuguese (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Portuguese and Brazilian literatures
  • Race, racisms and Portuguese colonialism
  • Women writers, feminisms, and nationalisms

Foley, Jon
Professor, Ecology, Evolution and Behavior & IonE (CBS)
Email | Website
  • The environment, Brazil

Forcinito, Ana
Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese (CLA)
Email | Website
  • 19th and 20th century Latin American literature testimonial writing,
  • Latin American film studies, with primary focus in Southern Cone studies
  • Women's writing and feminist theory.

Frey, Barbara
Assistant Professor, Law School/Human Rights Program
Email | Website
  • Mexico
  • Human rights

Friedman-Sanchez, Greta
Assistant Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Email | Website
  • International development; household economics and family health
  • Domestic violence, war, gender, and Latin America

Garcia, Cindy
Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts & Dance (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Chicana/o and Latin/o American Performance Studies, and the gendered performances of latinidad in urban libidinal economies
  • Cultural politics of migration, race, and feminist ethnography

Gonzalez, Ramon
Professor, English (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Creative writing, U.S. Latino literature, poetry writing, creative nonfiction, contemporary American poetry, editing and publishing journals and anthologies, Latin American studies.

Gudeman, Stephen
Professor, Anthropology (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Culture and the economy, Latin America, and social theory

Hanneken, Jaime
Assistant Professor, Spanish & Portuguese (CLA)
Email | Website
  • 19th-20th century Latin American literature, postcolonial approaches to literature and culture

Hilbink, Lisa
Assistant Professor, Political Science (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Latin American and Iberian politics, and democratization
  • Comparative judicial politics, comparative constitutionalism

Hinds, Harold
Professor, History (Morris)
Email | Website
  • Latin American history- Pre-Columbian to the present

Ibarra-Sevilla, Bengamin
Assistant Professor, Architecture (College of Design)
Email | Website
  • 16th and 17th century colonial indigenous buildings in Oaxaca, Mexico
  • Ancient masonry building techniques

Kaminsky, Amy
Professor, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Latin American literature, Spanish women writers
  • Gender and race in Latin American films
  • Nation and culture, primarily in the context of Latin America

Kehoe, Timothy
Professor, Economics (CLA)
Email | Website
  • International trade and public finance
  • Advised the Mexican government on the impact of joining NAFTA (1994), and the Panamanian government on the impact of unilateral foreign trade and investment reforms (1998)

Kildegaard, Arne
Associate Professor, Economics and Management (Morris)
Email | Website
  • Contemporary Latin America economy and trade

King, Kendall
Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction (CEHD)
Email | Website
  • Ideological, interactional and policy perspectives on second language learning and bilingualism, with particular attention to educational practices impacting language use among Indigenous populations in Latin America and Spanish speakers in the U.S.

Klee, Carol
Professor, Spanish & Portuguese (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Spanish language contact, sociolinguistics, bilingualism, second language acquisition

Logan, Enid Lynette
Assistant Professor, Sociology (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Sociology of Afro-Latin Populations
  • Family, Marriage and Gender
  • Race and media, race and law

Manson, Steven
Associate Professor , Geography (CLA)
Email | Website
  • North and Latin America, socioeconomic vulnerability.
  • Geographic information science, spatial analysis, and biocomplexity
  • Global change, land use/cover change

Marrero-Fente, Raul
Associate Professor, Sociology (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Colonial Latin America literature and culture,
  • Gender studies, human rights, law and literature
  • Caribbean literature and culture

McCaa, Robert
Professor, History/ MN population center (CLA)
Email | Website
  • History of Latin America
  • Latin American demographic catastrophe in the age of the conquests, on family structure in Mexico, and on the introduction of smallpox vaccinations in the seventeenth century.
  • Current research on creating a database of historical census microdata from Columbia and other countries with the Historical Census Project in the Department and Minnesota Population Center

McNamara, Patrick
Associate Professor, History (CLA)
Email | Website
  • History and memory in Mexico, comparative revolutions, Latin America and peasantries.

Menanteau, Dario
Professor, School of Social Work (CEHD)
Email | Website
  • Latin America and sustainable development.
  • Sociology of Development, rural sociology, and social organization

Meza, Fernando
Associate Professor, Music (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Orchestral music, contemporary solo and chamber music for marimba and percussion,
  • Folkloric marimba traditions of Costa Rica, Latin American contemporary and traditional music from Latin America and the Caribbean

Nelson, Kristen
Associate Professor, Forest Resources (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • A focus on the growing interdisciplinary understanding of environmental change and its dynamic with human systems.
  • International fieldwork in Latin America, specifically Chiapas, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Ecuador

O'Connell, Joanna
Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Latin-American literature and culture,
  • Issues of colonialism, race and nationalism, feminism and feminist theory,
  • Mexico, indigenous revitalization movements and writing,
  • Caribbean, African and Caribbean writing in French and Englis

Ocampo, Francisco
Associate Professor, Forest Resources (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Language and ideology, language variation, relationship between syntax, cognition and discourse, and word order in spoken Spanish

Okediji, Tade
Associate Professor, Applied Economics (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Comparative institutional economic development with specific emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America
  • Economic development theory, political economy of ethnicity, and economics of governance

Parker Aronson, Stacey
Professor, Humanities, Spanish (Morris)
Email | Website
  • Spanish Peninsular literature and 17th century Spanish literature, particularly women authors

Pedelty, Mark
Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communications (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Popular music, Environmental media and performance, Ethnographic research in the USA, El Salvador, and Mexico

Perrault, Rudy
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Music (Duluth)
Email | Website
  • Haitian classical composers

Pilcher, Jeffrey
Professor, History, Spanish (CLA)
Email | Website
  • History and culture of Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean
  • History and culture of food

Ramos-Garcia, Luis
Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese, Spanish (CLA)
Email | Website
  • 18th-20th century peninsular literature, 20th century Latin American literature
  • Hispanic cultural studies, shantytown cultural manifestation,
  • US Latino theatre, contemporary Latin American theater, Latin American popular music, Human rights and women’s studies

Samuels, David
Professor, Political Science (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Brazilian politics, Latin American politics, political parties and elections
  • US-Latin American relations

Schumacher, Julie
Professor, English (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Latin American literature
  • Creative writing, contemporary fiction, and children's literature

Schurman, Rachel
Associate Professor, Sociology (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Social Movements; Political Sociology; International Political Economy
  • Environmental Sociology
  • Latin America

Staats, Joseph L.
Assistant Professor, Political Science (Duluth)
Email | Website
  • American and comparative constitutional law and judicial politics with special interest in research relating to judicial systems in developing democracies.
  • Consulted to the United Nations Development Program and the Supreme Judicial Courts in Ecuador and Uruguay.

Sikkink, Kathryn
Professor, Political Science (CLA)
Email | Website
  • International human rights norms and law, transnational advocacy networks, social justice, political activism
  • Latin America politics, grassroots protests, war crimes tribunal, human rights trials, women's rights, U.S. human rights policy

Singer, Randy
Associate Professor, Veterinary & Biomedical Sciences (Veterinary Medicine)
Email | Website
  • Infectious disease epidemiology
  • Founder and director of an international summer school on public health and food safety in Valdivia, Chile

Spadaccini, Nicholas
Professor, Spanish & Portuguese (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Comparative literature and colonial Spanish-American literature
  • Early modern Spanish literature and culture
  • Postcolonial theory
  • Sociohistorical approaches

Stuecher, Uwe
Professor, Educational psychology (Duluth)
Email | Website
  • Clinical child psychology, cross-cultural psychology, children with disabilities

Tedick,Diane
Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction (CEHD)
Email | Website
  • Pedagogy required for the successful integration of language and content instruction
  • Spanish immersion programs.

Tinsley, Omise'eke
Associate Professor, English (CLA)
Email | Website
  • African Diaspora, Caribbean, and transnational literature and theory,
  • Postcolonial literature and culture, and poetry

Torres, Edén
Associate Professor, Women's Studies (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Race, class, and gender
  • Chicana/o cultural studies, and Chicana/o feminist theory, Chicana/o literature

Turner, Thomas C.
Professor, Humanities, Spanish (Morris)
Email | Website
  • Spanish language

Vázquez-Arroyo, Antonio
Assistant Professor, Political Science (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Contemporary currents of critical postcolonial theory in the non-Western world, especially traditions stemming from Latin America and the Caribbean.
  • Affiliated with the interdisciplinary research network Antropolítica, which is based at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia

Weil, Connie
Associate Professor, Geography (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Latin America, medical geography, migration, tourism, impact of socioeconomic and environmental change on human health
  • Agricultural colonization, Amazonia development, coca farming, human ecology, international cocaine trad

Wells, Scott
Professor, Veterinary Public Health (Veterinary Medicine)
Email | Website
  • Farm to table study program in Uruguay

Zeitz, Elieen
Professor Emerita, Humanities, Foreign Language and Literature (Duluth)
Email | Website
  • Spanish-American Literature and Culture

Faculty Expertise

You may also download an Excel version of this list that is searchable and sortable.

Allen, Ryan
Assistant Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Email | Website
  • Immigrant and refugee policy
  • Urban planning in diverse communities

Archer, John W.
Professor, Art History (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Urban planning and architectural history
  • 19th-20th century American architecture, landscape, and urbanism

Assad, Ragui
Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Email | Website
  • Politics and economics of the Middle East and North Africa
  • Urban planning; poverty in developing countries
  • Women's work in developing countries

Baker, Lawrence
Research Professor, Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Urban ecosystems
  • Urban water management
  • Urban pollution

Blair, Robert
Associate Professor, Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Urban sprawl affects on native bird and butterflies
  • How urbanization is leading to the homogenization of the world's fauna

Braun, Bruce
Associate Professor, Geography, American Studies (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Urban geography
  • Colonial and postcolonial geographies

Cao, Jason
Assistant Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Email | Website
  • Land use and transportation interactions
  • Telecommunication and travel
  • Neighborhood design

Castle, Eric
Assistant Professor, Natural Resource Dept, Horticulture (Crookston)
Email | Website
  • Ecological restoration
  • Urban storm water mitigation
  • Sustainable landscapes and land use planning

Chen, Arthur
Associate Professor, Architecture (College of Design)
Email | Website
  • Architectural thinking, making, and drawing
  • Urbanism, urban landscape and investigating building typology and urban morphology of port cities

Comazzi, John
Assistant Professor, Architecture (College of Design)
Email | Website
  • Contested urbanism

Cooper, Terry
Professor, Soil, Water, and Climate (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Urban soil problems
  • Environmental science

Crump, Jeff
Associate Professor, Housing, Design, & Apparel (College of Design)
Email | Website
  • Housing policy and affordable housing
  • Urban politics

Demerath, Peter
Associate Professor, Organization Leadership, Policy, and Development (CEHD)
Email | Website
  • Urban education
  • Comparative study of class culture and education

Dubrow, Gail
Professor, History (CLA)
Email | Website
  • U.S. urban history
  • Public history and historic preservation

Easter, K. William
Professor, Applied Economics (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Water markets and the transaction costs of sectoral and intersectoral water exchanges
  • Transaction costs of alternative methods for providing urban water supplies in developing countries

Fan, Yingling
Assistant Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Email | Website
  • Land use/growth management
  • Transportation planning and policy
  • Urbanization in China

Goetz, Edward G.
Professor, CURA/Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Email | Website
  • Housing policy and markets
  • Politics of urban and regional planning, growth management strategies

Goldman, Michael
Associate Professor, Sociology (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Transnational, political, environmental, and developmental sociology
  • Global cities, particularly global cities of the South
  • The making of Bangalore into a world city

Gowan, Teresa
Assistant Professor, Sociology (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Urban Sociology, ethnography, poverty and inequality

Johnson, Gary
Extension Professor, Forest Resources (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Urban Forest Health: Stress Disorders, Deicing Salt Damage, urbanized soils, diseases of trees and shrubs

Kayzar, Brenda
Assistant Professor, Geography (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Urban and Cultural Geography
  • North American cities, downtown revitalization, arts and culture
  • Urban/environment relations, landscape and lifestyle commodification

Kells, Stephen
Assistant Professor, Entomology (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Urban and industrial entomology
  • Bedbugs

Kuhlke, Olaf
Associate Professor, Geography (CLA, Duluth)
Email | Website
  • Urban ecology, particularly habitat mapping and urban water issues

Leitner, Helga
Professor, Sociology (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Urban, political, and international migrations

Manson, Steven
Associate Professor , Geography (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Geographic information science, spatial analysis, biocomplexity, environmental science
  • Global change, land use/cover change, North and Latin America
  • Socioeconomic vulnerability

Martin, Judith
Professor, Urban Studies Program (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Urban studies, Metropolitan planning and governance
  • Urban Design

Montgomery, Rebecca
Assistant Professor, Forest Resources (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Effects of global climate change on terrestrial ecosystems
  • Mechanisms associated with the ability of exotic species that invade new habitats
  • The ecology managed forest ecosystems

Murphy, Kevin
Associate Professor, History (CLA)
Email | Website
  • US history, urban history, and public history
  • Comparative history of women and gender

Myers, Samuel
Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Email | Website
  • Microeconomic policy analysis; racial inequality and public policy
  • Credit and housing markets; engineering workforce, and academic labor markets

Mykerezi, Elton
Assistant Professor, Applied Economics (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Regional/urban economics and rural development

Nelson, Kristen
Associate Professor, Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Urban ecosystems
  • Conflict management in environmental planning and management
  • Natural resource governance, and conservation strategies in human dominated landscapes

Nieber, John L.
Professor, Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Assessing the impact of land use activities on the hydrology and water quality of ground water, streams, lakes, and wetlands
  • Water quality impacts of urban development

Orfield, Myron
Associate Professor, Law School
Email | Website
  • Land use, regional governance, urban development and planning

Park, Lisa Sun-Hee
Associate Professor, Sociology (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Immigration and welfare policy, immigrant health care
  • Urban theory and methods

Pine, Adam
Assistant Professor, Geography (Duluth)
Email | Website
  • Urban geography with particular interest in the relationship between population change and urban development

Reich, Peter B.
Professor, Forest Resources (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Effects and impact of climate change, elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, other air pollutants, and land use/management
  • Biodiversity and sustainability of forest and grassland ecosystems both in Minnesota and globally

Samatar, Abdi
Professor, Geography (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Development theory and the state
  • Environment and development, political economy, and agrarian change
  • Ethnic politics, East and Southern Africa

San Martin, Ignacio
Professor, Architecture (College of Design)
Email | Website
  • Landscape architecture and urban design

Sands, Gary R.
Associate Professor, Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Water quality impacts of urban development
  • Land and water resources including environmental impacts and sustainability of agricultural systems

Satkowski, Leon
Professor, Architecture (College of Design)
Email | Website
  • Architectural history and urbanism

Schively Slotterbback, Carissa
Assistant Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Email | Website
  • Environmental and land use planning
  • Sustainable development

Sheppard, Eric
Regents Professor, Geography (CLA)
Email | Website
  • Urban systems change and the geography of development
  • Economic geography

Smith, Pamela
Associate Professor, Applied Economics (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • International economics with an emphasis on trade and multinationals
  • Intellectual property rights.

Solomonson, Katherine
Associate Professor, Architecture (College of Design)
Email | Website
  • Architectural and urban history addressing in the production of values, identities, and social relations

Wilson, Bruce N.
Professor, Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering (CFANS)
Email | Website
  • Quantity and quality of surface waters, especially as influenced by agricultural practices
  • Water quality impacts of urban development