Faculty Research Awards

Javier Auyero, Sociology: Things That Work: A Comparative Study of Contentious Politics-based Initiatives in Marginalized Communities

Raissa Fabregas, LBJ School of Public Affairs: Enhancing Parental Mental Health and Children’s Outcomes in High-Poverty Areas in Mexico through a Low-Cost Scalable Program 

Carlos Ramos-Scharrón, Geography & Environment / LLILAS: Water Access Challenges and Possibilities for Rural Communities in Mexico’s Volcanic Belt: The Case of San Isidro Canoas Altas in Estado de Puebla 

Sandro Sessarego, Spanish & Portuguese: Minority Languages and Linguistic Human Rights in Latin America: Strategies to Revitalize Afro-Bolivian Spanish (Shared with graduate student Paula Jiménez) 

Octavio Kano-Galván, Moody College, and Boris Corredor, Spanish & Portuguese: Grasshopper Consumption for Sustainable Nutrition and Community Well-Being

Robin Moore, Butler School of Music: Seminar on Ecocultural Knowledge of the Huasteca / Seminario de Saberes Culturales-Ecológicos de la Huasteca (Shared with graduate student J.A. Strub)

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Professor Leu's project, "Settlement: Digital Art Archiving Black Lives in Brazil, "uses the piece titled Assentamento (Settlement) by Black Braziilan artist Rosana Paulino as a point of departure to document a movement in which "the creative freedom-dreams by Black women artists and . . . demonstrate that the academy is not the only legitimate site for the production of knowledge. Because of language barriers, "Brazil's rich Black feminist intellectual traditions are still inaccessible and under-appreciated by the transnational feminist movement," writes Leu. This project builds on her existing efforts to challenge that omission.

Professor Romero's project—"On God, Idols, and Language: Latin, Spanish, and Arabic and the Christianization of the Highland Maya"—is an interdisciplinary study of the role of language and translation practices in the Christianization of the Highland Maya in the 16th century. Through the use of linguistic, philological, and ethnohistorical methods, Romero will endeavor to understand the ways in which Mayan and European languages interacted and shaped the emergence of Maya Christianity.

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Daniel Fridman, LLILAS and Department of Sociology
In his current research project, Fridman studies the role of money in therapeutic practices among Argentine psychologists. Through this lens, he examines everyday cultural uses of money in contemporary society and moral tensions around its role. Fridman is author of Freedom from Work: Embracing Financial Self-Help in the United States and Argentina (2016), also available in Spanish as El sueño de vivir sin trabajar.

Robin Moore, Butler School of Music
Moore's research project focuses on the growing and transforming role of violin performance, or toques de violín, in Afro-Cuban religious rituals. This is a virtually undocumented form of music-making. Moore is author, most recently, of the book Danzón: Diálogos de música y baile por la cuenca del Caribe (2020, with Alejandro Madrid) and the book chapter "The Cuban Son, Race, and Transculturation" (2022), in The Cambridge Companion to Caribbean Music.

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Brent Crosson, Department of Religious Studies
Research Project: The Caribbean Anthropocene: The Birth of Race, Nature Religion, and Climate Change, 1700–Present (St. Martin and Jamaica)

George Flaherty, Department of Art and Art History
Cross-Border Renaissances: Race and Revolutionary Art between Mexico and Black America (Mexico)

Edgar Gómez-Cruz, School of Information
Digital Frontiers in the Andes: A Collaborative Ethnographic Study of Technology Adoption (Argentina)

Zachary Elkins, Department of Government
Nationality Laws and Migrant Integration (Brazil and Colombia)

Wendy Hunter, Department of Government
Twin Transformations: The Expansion of the Welfare State and Religiosity in Contemporary Brazil (Brazil)

Sandro Sessarego, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Afro-Puerto Rican Spanish (Puerto Rico)

Brent Crosson, Department of Religious Studies
Research Project: The Other Anthropocene: Climate Change and the Cosmopolitics of Energy
Country: Trinidad and Tobago

Kenneth Greene, Department of Government
Research Project: Mexico's 2024 Elections
Country: Mexico

Kelly McDonough, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Research Project: Nahua Women, Migration, and Tourism—Female Beach Vendors
Country: Mexico

Astrid Runggaldier, Department of Art and Art History
Research Project: Archaeological Historiography and Collecting of Guatemalan Textiles
Country: Guatemala

Sandro Sessarego, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Research Project: Afro-Veracruz Spanish
Country: Mexico

Rebecca Torres, Department of Geography
Research Project: Mexican Child Displacement, Migration, and Asylum
Country: Mexico

Enzo Vasquez Toral, Department of Theatre and Dance
Research Project: Queer and Trans Folklore in the Peruvian Central Andes
Country: Peru

Paola Canova, LLILAS / Department of Anthropology
Project title: Outlaw Cattle: Ranching and the Politics of Nature in the Paraguayan Chaco

Héctor Domínguez Ruvalcaba, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Project title: The Diamond Man: Luis Barragán, Emotional Architecture and the Queerness of Mexican Modernity

Daniel Fridman, LLILAS / Department of Sociology
Project title: Money Transferences: The Payments for Psychotherapy in Argentina

Kenneth Greene, Department of Government
Project title: Political Accountability in Mexico 

Kelly McDonough, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Project title: Native Justice and Land in Colonial Cholula

Carlos Ramos-Scharrón, LLILAS / Department of Geography and the Environment
Project title: Bathymetric Surveys of Key Water Reservoirs in Puerto Rico

Sergio Romero, LLILAS / Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Project title: Lenguas Generales and Spanish Colonialism: A Comparative Study of Quechua and Nahuatl 

Iyaxel Cojti Ren, Department of Anthropology 
"K'iche' expansionism and the politics of the Maya highlands during the Postclassic period"

Kenneth Greene, Department of Government
“Political Accountability in Mexico”

Gabriela Polit, Department of Spanish & Portuguese 
“Female Fantasies: Trauma and Drive in Difficult Times”  

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Edwin R. Román Ramírez (LLILAS PhD 2017), a Guatemalan archaeologist and director of the Southern Tikal Archaeological Project, will be the fall 2025 Tinker Visiting Professor. He was nominated by Thomas Garrison (Geography & the Environment) and David Stuart (Art & Art History).

Elia Haydée Carrasco Ortíz, a Mexican psycholinguist who studies the cognitive and neural bases of language processing in Mexican Indigenous languages and Spanish vernaculars, will be the spring 2026 Tinker Visiting Professor. She was nominated by Sandro Sessarego (Spanish & Portuguese).

Marixa Lasso is a Panamanian historian, award-winning author, and past director / current researcher at Centro de Investigaciones Históricas, Antropológicas y Culturales in Panama. She was nominated as the spring 2025 Tinker Visiting Professor by Lina Del Castillo (History / LLILAS) and Megan Raby (History). Learn more.

Daniel Escotto is a Mexican architect and educator who specializes in urban design. He was the fall 2024 Tinker Visiting Professor, nominated by Benjamín Ibarra-Sevilla (School of Architecture). Learn more.

View information on past Tinker Visiting Professors.

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The following faculty affiliates have received support to attend the 2025 Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Congress, taking place May 23–25 in San Francisco, California.

Luis E. Cárcamo-Huechante (Spanish and Portuguese)
Militarización y resguardo colonial del capital en territorio mapuche

Laura Gutiérrez (Mexican American and Latino Studies)
Mesoamerican Re-imaginings by Queer Mexican and Mexican Diasporic Artists

Wendy Hunter (Government)
Social Pensions in Latin America

Raúl L. Madrid (Government)
The Birth of Democracy in South America

Marcelo Paixão (African and African Diaspora Studies / LLILAS)
Workshop: Las alternativas para el desarrollo económico para poblaciones afrodescendientes en América Latina y el Caribe

The following faculty affiliates have received support to attend the 2024 Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Congress, taking place June 12–15 in Bogotá.

• Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez (Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese)
• Boris Corredor (Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese)
• Lina Del Castillo (Dept. of History / LLILAS)
• Raúl Madrid (Dept. of Government)
• Santiago Muñoz Arbeláez (Dept. of History)
• Sergio Romero (Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese / LLILAS)
• Cristina Soriano (Dept. of History)
• John Turci-Escobar (Butler School of Music)

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