Alumni Spotlight

Everett Eissenstat, Executive Vice President
Inter-American Development Bank

Everett Eissenstat (MA, LLILAS, 1988) is an internationally recognized leader in government affairs and economic policy with more than three decades of experience spanning both the public and private sectors. Throughout his career, he has held senior leadership positions focused on global trade, energy, and international economic affairs, helping shape policy and strengthen economic partnerships around the world.

"My master’s degree at LLILAS provided the foundation for a successful career collaborating with governments and institutions throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Through my studies, I developed a deeper understanding of the economic, political, and historical forces shaping the region. That perspective enabled me to analyze complex trade and development issues in context, helping to advance more informed and sustainable outcomes. LLILAS also gave me the opportunity to study alongside people who shared my curiosity about the region. Those relationships endured for decades; many of the people I met at LLILAS remain among my closest friends today. For that, I am profoundly grateful."

Ruth H. Matamoros-Mercado
Assistant Professor of Geography and Environment

​​​​​
Ruth H. Matamoros-Mercado (LLILAS PhD 2022) is a Miskitu Indigenous scholar, legal researcher, and assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Originally from Bilwi on Nicaragua’s Northern Caribbean Coast, she is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work bridges geography, law, and Indigenous studies to examine Indigenous land rights, territorial claims, environmental justice, and community resistance in Central America.

"LLILAS gave me an intellectual home where I learned to approach Latin America through the histories, knowledge, and political struggles of its peoples. Its interdisciplinary community helped me bring Indigenous studies into conversation with Geography, Latin American Studies, and Law. That training continues to shape my research on Indigenous territorial struggles, autonomy, environmental justice, and the forms of knowledge produced through relationships with land. LLILAS also taught me that scholarship can be rigorous while remaining accountable to the communities and places from which it grows. Those lessons remain central to my work as a scholar."

Read our 2023 interview with Dr. Matamoros-Mercado.

Richard Hanson, Co-Founder & Executive Director
Tejiendo Alianzas, Oaxaca, Mexico

Richard Hanson (LLILAS/LBJ dual degree, 2007) is co-founder of Tejiendo Alianzas (Weaving Partnerships) and a community development practitioner with more than ten years of experience building partnerships between rural communities in Oaxaca, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions in Mexico and the United States. Originally from Texas, he works in the areas of cultural diversity, migration, youth engagement, and sustainable economic development initiatives that create opportunities while strengthening community resilience.

"LLILAS made me appreciate the rich diversity of perspectives, experiences, knowledge, resources, and challenges faced by communities throughout Latin America. It sparked a lifelong curiosity to keep learning and eventually serve through development programs informed and directed by local collaboration. This philosophy directly guides our daily work in rural Oaxaca. Partnering with local families and diverse academic institutions, we focus on community-led agroecology to improve soil quality and food security, off-grid solar power for rural classrooms, and local enterprise incubation. LLILAS instilled in me the understanding that true partnership means co-creating solutions grounded in local heritage and participation."

Nicole Kreisberg
Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Penn State

Nicole Kreisberg (LLILAS BA, 2010) is a sociologist who studies the inequalities faced by immigrants in educational institutions and the labor market. She holds a master's degree in social policy from the University of Chicago and a PhD in sociology from Brown University. She also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University’s Center for Population and Development Studies. She has published research on stratification among immigrants in terms of educational attainment and employment, as well as the relationship between the law, organizational behavior, and labor market inequality, and employment discrimination more broadly.

"My time at LLILAS gave me the intellectual foundation for everything I've done since. Majoring in Latin American Studies and Anthropology at UT, and especially my time with the late Dr. Brian Stross, taught me a great deal about using observations and interviews for research on immigration, inequality, and labor. That training did not just help me in graduate school and beyond, it also led directly to my new book, 1 in 100: Why So Few Latinos Find Labor Market Success (University of Chicago Press, 2027). I am so grateful for LLILAS and the life-long connections it gave me."

Cristina Tzintzún Ramírez, Civic Leader
CEO, Ascend Strategy Labs

Cristina Tzintzún Ramírez (LLILAS BA, 2006) is a nationally recognized labor organizer, immigrant rights advocate, and civic leader whose work has focused on expanding economic opportunity and political participation for underrepresented communities. She began her organizing career while still a student and went on to co-found the Workers Defense Project, which became one of the country's leading organizations advocating for immigrant and low-wage workers. In 2016, she founded Jolt, a Texas-based organization dedicated to increasing civic engagement and political participation among young Latinos. She later served as president of NextGen America, the nation's largest youth voter engagement organization. She has taught at UT Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs, contributed to major media outlets, and was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Texas in 2020.

"There is no better Latin American Studies program in the country than LLILAS. The opportunities I was given to learn abroad, put my knowledge into action, and the relationships I made, helped propel me in my social change career.” 

Ronda L. Brulotte, Professor of Geography and Environmental Sciences

Interdisciplinary scholar Ronda Brulotte earned a master's in Latin American Studies from ILAS (soon to be LLILAS) in 1999, followed by a PhD in Anthropology in 2006, also from UT Austin. She is professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences and dean of Graduate Studies at the University of New Mexico. Brulotte is the author, most recently, of Mezcal in Oaxaca: A Craft Spirit for the Global Marketplace (UT Press, 2025). Her previous books are Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage (Routledge, 2014); Between Art and Artifact: Archaeological Replicas and Cultural Production in Oaxaca, Mexico (UT Press, 2012).

"My time in the Latin American Studies program at UT was formative," writes Brulotte. "Not only did I find anthropology as a field of study that would set me on my career path as an ethnographer working in Mexico, but I also learned the value of tackling big questions from an interdisciplinary perspective. My master's program also exposed me to sociology, ethnomusicology, language and cultural studies, and geography. I still approach any research I undertake through an interdisciplinary lens."

Prisca Gayles, Professor of Sociology
 

Prisca Gayles earned her PhD at LLILAS (2020) and is assistant professor of Sociology and Gender, Race, and Identity at the University of Nevada, Reno.

She is the author of Pain into Purpose: Mobilizing Emotions in Argentina's Black Resistance Movement (Cambridge University Press, December 2024). 

From the press: " 'Pain into Purpose' is a groundbreaking exploration of Argentina's Movimiento Negro (Black resistance movement). Employing a multi-year ethnography of Black political organizing, Prisca Gayles delves deep into the challenges activists face in confronting the erasure and denial of Argentina's Black past and present."

More on the book here.

Ana Kearney, Social Worker
 

Ana Kearney graduated from LLILAS and the Steve Hicks School of Social Work in August 2022 following the completion of her thesis, “Which Box to Check? How Transracial and International Adoptees from Latin America Develop Their Racial and Ethnic Identities.” She currently lives in Philadelphia, PA, and is pursuing a career in social work. She plans to continue researching adoption and issues that affect adoptees.

Kearney wrote about the personal story at the center of her master's research in a compelling article for this year's Portal magazine. Read it here.