We are pleased to announce that Sandra Acocal, a doctoral student in History at Rutgers University, has successfully defended her research proposal and has advanced to Ph.D. candidacy. The defense took place on September 5 and received full approval from her advisory committee.

Her research explores the Indian nobility of central Mexico in the 16th century, shedding light on their social, political, and cultural roles during the early colonial period.

Her committee includes Dr. Camilla Townsend (Rutgers), Dr. Aldo Lauria-Santiago (Rutgers), Dr. Yesenia Barragan (Rutgers), Dr. Ana Díaz Serrano (Universidad de Murcia, Spain), and Dr. Lidia Gómez García (Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico).

Mónica Mogollón Plazas has recently been appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Before this role, she served as a policy advisor to the Colombian government, where she focused on research related to behavioral interventions aimed at improving tax collection, as well as policies supporting small business development.

Mónica earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Rutgers University, where she conducted a research project on the long-term educational and professional trajectories of marginally admitted students to Colombia’s elite public universities. Her study followed participants over more than two decades, drawing on extensive administrative data. This work was supported in part by a CLAS small grant.

For more information about Mónica’s work, visit https://www.monicamogollonp.com

We are proud to share that Professor Kevon Rhiney, affiliated faculty of the Center for Latin American Studies and member of the Department of Geography at Rutgers–New Brunswick, has been selected as a lead author for the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. He will contribute to the “Small Islands” chapter of Working Group II, bringing his expertise in environmental justice, agricultural resilience, and climate change adaptation in the Caribbean. 

 Dr. Rhiney is one of three Rutgers researchers selected for this prestigious role. For more information, click here

Dear CLAS Community,

Welcome (back) to a new academic year!

I was recently appointed by Dean Wade as CLAS Director for the balance of the ordinary three-year term for which I was elected (as a single candidate) by CLAS faculty affiliates.

For the start of this year, I have a few important news items:

• We have a new colleague in Political Science: Professor Jana Morgan. Her work focuses on political inclusion and exclusion in Latin America. She has an impressive record. Welcome!
• We did not receive authorization to continue with our Post-Doctoral Associate position. A real loss. Vierelina will complete her second year, and after that, I will continue to lobby for the return of this important resource.
• We received the first payment from SAS for income sharing from summer and winter teaching. This will help with our events planning and allow us to increase the funding dedicated to graduate research grants after last year’s cut.
• I increased the preliminary funding assigned to the CLAS Working Groups for programming to $1000. If the working groups do not show signs of life, these funds will be reassigned.
• SAS cancelled one of our 101 sections for the Fall term. Now all three remaining sections are at 100% enrollment, and we have an unmet demand for seats. 
• Our long-standing instructor, Geisa Rocha is retiring. We thank her for her years of work teaching for the CLAS.
• We have already scheduled a few events:
  - Fall welcome and reception. Wed Sept 17, 5:00-6:30 PM. Place to be announced.
  - On October 9, 5 pm, a talk with Colombian activist and analyst Alberto Yepes, a lawyer and an internationally well-known expert on the peace
  process and human rights. Co-sponsored with the Colombian Human Rights Network. 
  - Our Fall Research Symposium is scheduled for Friday, November 7. Summer grant awardees and other graduate students will present their
  work. I encourage faculty to participate as well. Graduate students often discover the specialties and interests of faculty across departments late in their careers at RU.
  - Pablo Piccato (History, Columbia University) will present his recent work on violence in Mexico on Nov 29, 12 noon.
• Javier Gonzalez (History) will continue as our communications assistant. Send him any news you want posted to the website or included in the weekly email.
• Nancy will continue as our dedicated admin.
• The Rutgers/Puerto Rico Archival Collaboration, which I began a few years back under the CLAS umbrella, has taken off. We recently completed the first year of a multi-year, million-dollar grant provided by the Mellon Foundation (PRAC.Rutgers.edu). If you find any way you want to collaborate with this work,
  please let me know.

For this year, I anticipate these initiatives,

• Continuation of the “Violences in Latin America” series with three guest speakers.
• A symposium on urbanism and cities in Latin America in the Spring term, organized by Andrea Restrepo (from the Bloustein School).
• A shared theme on Climates, Environments, and Migration with Latino/Caribbean Studies.
• An update on current events in Cuba and Puerto Rico.
• One or two lunchtime presentations by graduate students.

I encourage the CLAS community to find programming that fits with or that may be in conversation with these efforts. I would like to encourage discussion of various authoritarian states and movements of both left and right; migration that remains south of the US/Mexico border; and the impact of the deportation regime in the US.

As usual, the work of the CLAS is most productive when it is shared, so I encourage your participation and engagement. I will soon put out a call to faculty for EC membership (only two meetings a year!) and will make sure to recruit a graduate student rep.

Finally, if you identify new faculty or students who might be interested in joining the CLAS, please send me their info or make sure they join our general email, faculty, and/or graduate student email lists.

Please send us your news!

Gracias y saludos,

Aldo Lauria Santiago
Director