Dr. Jill Beckman is the Director of the Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (DWLLC), DEO of the Latin American Studies Program, and Associate Professor of Linguistics.

Amber Brian is Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese. Her research and teaching focus on colonial Spanish America. Her publications address the movement of cultural knowledge and historical memory among native individuals and communities as well as between those communities and the dominant political sphere in colonial Mexico. She has published widely on don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl (ca. 1578-1650), a mestizo historian connected with the Indian city of Tetzcoco who is a seminal figure in the development of Mexican history.

Horacio Castellanos Moya is a writer and a journalist from El Salvador. For two decades he worked as editor of news agencies, magazines and newspapers in Mexico, Guatemala and his own country. As a fiction writer, he was granted residencies in a program supported by the Frankfurt International Book Fair (2004-2006) and in the City of Asylum program in Pittsburgh (2006-2008). He has also taught in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2009, he was guest researcher at the University of Tokyo with a fellowship granted by the Japan Foundation.

In her research, Dr. Roxanna Curto explores the representation of cultural elements such as technology and sports in literature from the French- and Spanish-speaking worlds. She is the author of Inter-tech(s): Colonialism and the Question of Technology in Francophone Literature (University of Virginia Press, 2016), which examines the representation of modern technologies in the works of Francophone writers from Africa and the Caribbean.

Armando Duarte, Professor, Contemporary Choreographer, Researcher of the Brazilian Popular Culture, and Director of Dance Production joined the UI in 1993. He has received numerous awards at Iowa and elsewhere throughout his career and has created works for companies in the US, Brazil and other countries, with more than half of his repertory being based or related to his native Brazilian culture.

Dr. Mariola Espinosa is a historian of medicine and public health in the Caribbean. Her 2009 book, Epidemic Invasions: Yellow Fever and the Limits of Cuban Independence, 1878-1930, was awarded the 2007 Jack D. Pressman-Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Development Award of the American Association for the History of Medicine. In 2010 she was recognized as the 2010 Virginia and Derrick Sherman Emerging Scholar. She is currently working on a book project that looks into medical understandings of fever in the British, French, Spanish, and U.S. Caribbean empires.

Dr. Claire Fox is a co-founder of the Latina/o/x Studies minor, which developed from a series of Latino Midwest events that were held at the University of Iowa in 2012-13 and sponsored by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. She teaches courses on Latina/o/x literature and visual culture in the Departments of English and Spanish & Portuguese. With Omar Valerio-Jiménez and Santiago Vaquera Vásquez, she is co-editor of The Latino Midwest Reader. Her current research addresses Latina/o/x American place-making, visual culture, and cultural policy.

Meredith Mahy Gall is the senior academic advisor for the Division of World Literatures, Languages, and Cultures (including all world languages, International Studies, linguistics, and translation) and global health studies students.

Dr. Brian Gollnick is an Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and is involved with cultural theory and Comparative Literature. His research has focused on Latin American cultural studies, particularly modern Mexico, with an emphasis on social and literary theory. He also teaches the literary translation workshop in Spanish.

Dr. Laura Graham is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on Indigenous agency and the politics of representation among Indigenous peoples of Lowland South America. She has carried out long-term field research among the A’uwẽ-Xavante of central Brazil and among Wayuu peoples of Venezuela.

Dr. Joy Hayes’ research and teaching interests include radio studies; media history; Latin American media; media theory; race, ethnicity and media; and Latin American Studies.  She is a former Fulbright Scholar to Mexico whose research on Mexico investigates community broadcasting and translocalism.

Dr. Ana Merino is a Professor of Hispanic Studies and a 2016 Collegiate Scholar. In 2009 Merino left her position at Dartmouth College to create the Spanish MFA program at the University of Iowa, she was its director since her foundation in March 2011 until December 2018. Between 2001-2011 she was a Member of the ICAF (International Comic Arts Forum) Executive Committee; and between 2004 and 2014 Directors Board Member at The Center for Cartoon Studies.

Dr. Kristine Muñoz's research and theory are centered in the ethnography of speaking based on fieldwork in Colombia, England, Spain, Finland, and Texas. She has pursued issues of how to bring scholarship about Colombian culture into public digital spaces in ways that are accessible and compelling to educated lay publics and Spanish language educators.

Dr. Kathleen Newman is a Latin Americanist whose research focuses on theoretical questions regarding the relation between fictional narrative and politics. Her teaching includes transnational film theory as well as courses on Latin American, Spanish and Chicano Cinemas. Her current research project examines the relation between silent film, early feminist movements, and democratization in Argentina in the period 1910-1935, with close attention being paid to the constitution of a transnational cultural imaginary through both national cinema and imported fiction feature films.

Dr. Rene Rocha is Herman J. and Eileen S. Schmidt Chair, Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Latina/o/x Studies Program at the University of Iowa. He is a leading scholar of racial and ethnic politics in the United States whose articles are regularly published in influential journals, including The Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, Policy Studies Journal, American Politics Research, State Politics & Policy Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, and Review of Policy Research.

Course Management for Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Department of Linguistics, Department of German, Latin American Studies Program, and International Studies Program Graduate Coordinator for Spanish, Spanish Creative Writing, and Linguistics

Luke has an M.A. in Linguistics from the University of Iowa. Through his work as a researcher and instructor, Luke has gained valuable experience in designing and conducting experiments, analyzing data, presenting findings, and using empirically tested methods to guide language instruction in the classroom. He speaks English, Spanish, and French, and loves to find new ways of taking the language learning experience out of the classroom and into daily life.

Gabbie holds a bachelor’s degree in English. She taught English Language Learning in the Clear Creek Amana School District and worked in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Office of the Dean prior to becoming Division Administrator for the Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in 2023. Her interests include building sustainable staffing and communication structures; fostering a strong multicultural community; and supporting the Division in its mission to advance interdisciplinary research, artistic creativity, global awareness, and the study of languages, literatures, linguistics, societies, regions, and cultures. She collaborates with the staff team and faculty leadership to facilitate administrative operations and strategic planning.