Public Humanities Fellows (2023)

We are thrilled to announce the The Latinx Project’s Public Humanities Fellows joining us this summer. The 9 graduate students from NYU & the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium will be collaborating respectively with El Museo del Barrio, El Clemente Soto Velez Center, Regina Feeney Freeport Memorial Library, ABC No Rio, CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, ID Studios Theatre, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute and Taller Boricua .

 
 

Alberto Garcia

Albert Garcia is a doctoral student in the Ph.D. Program in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Student. His research interests focus on Spatial Sociology, Power and Inequality, and Black and Latinx Studies. For an applied example of his research interests, Albert wrote about climate change as a power structure has reshaped tourism in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. He received his M.A. from the Study of the Americas Program at CUNY City College of New York. Albert continues to be motivated by how processes of power influence how marginalized communities and identities interact in and navigate social spaces.

Andrea Sofia R. Matos

Andrea Sofia Matos is currently a graduate student in the Visual Arts Administration program at New York University. She received her BA in Art History and Photography from Florida International University (2021). Born and raised in Bayamón, Puerto Rico she is a curator and administrator focused on art from the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and their diasporas. Recently she curated “IN-ANIMADA” a solo exhibition by artist William Norris Pagán and was the curatorial assistant of the exhibition “Swagger & Tenderness: The South Bronx Portraits of John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres” at the Bronx Museum of Art.

Casiano R. Hamer

Casiano R. Hamer (he/him) is an African American/Cuban American writer/director based in NYC pursuing an MFA in Film/ TV at NYU. He serves as a program facilitator developing opportunities for aspiring feature filmmakers at the NYU Production Lab, pioneering student/mentor relationships as a Mentorship Coordinator, and supporting students from underrepresented communities as his department’s IDBEA Coordinator. His films represent the complexities of his culture through personal storytelling while uplifting his own community. His work can be viewed on NoBudge, Hulu and has featured in festivals across the world. He aims to continue as a filmmaker and community organizer to change the industry and empower artists who continue to be marginalized.

Gelenia Trinidad Rivera

Gelenia Trinidad Rivera (she/they) is an Afroborinicana, born and raised between the sounds and flavors of a Puerto Rican and Dominican family. As a museologist, archaeologist, and printmaker, Gelenia dives into material culture and art theory through an anthropological lens. She holds a BA in Anthropology and Art History from the University of Puerto Rico, and a MA in Latin American, Caribbean, and Museum Studies from NYU. Her career has been nurtured by her work at MoMA PS1, the Smithsonian (NMAAHC), and the Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte. Currently, she works for Tiznando el País (UPR), a project that enhances Puerto Rico’s African heritage through an anti-racist vantage point.

Grecia Márquez García

was born on the Mexican border with the U.S., in Ciudad Juarez, where she earned a BA in Hispanomexican Literature and an MA in Literary Studies. In Juarez, Grecia used to work with theater audiences as a dialog facilitator and theater critic; at the same time, she was part of different cultural collectives such as Palabra Brava and La Palabra y el Cuerpo where she would facilitate creative and theory workshops around literature and theater topics. In 2020 and in 2021 two of her plays were staged by local artists. She is now a doctoral student at the Spanish and Portuguese Department at New York University, where she does research on theater and performance studies, and decolonial thought.

 
 

Mariel M. Acosta Matos

Mariel Acosta is a first-year Ph.D. student of Hispanic Sociolinguistics in the Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures (LAILaC) program at the CUNY Graduate Center. She holds a BA in Anthropology from Hunter College and an MA in Spanish from The City College of New York, where she has also taught Spanish as adjunct lecturer. Mariel is a Provost Enhancement Fellow, and as such, starting on her second year, she will work in outreach and mentorship of undergraduates in the CUNY Pipeline Program, who are interested in pursuing graduate school. Her research interests include metalinguistic and metapragmatic discourses on inclusive or non-binary language practices; the circulation of anarchist ideas, practices, discourses and people in late XIX and early XX century Dominican Republic; and the Latinx punk community in New York City.

Michelle Rendón Ochoa

Michelle Rendón Ochoa is an educator and PhD student in Urban Education at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is passionate about co-creating healing, critically conscious spaces with young people through praxis, counternarratives and art. Michelle holds a BA in adolescent education with an emphasis in Spanish from St. John’s University and a MA in Learning and Teaching Processes in Second Languages from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín, Colombia. She is interested in community-based research, digital archives, school abolition and ethnic studies.

Orlando Ochoa, Jr.

Orlando is a poet and writer from the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. They received their bachelor's degree in African & African Diaspora Studies and Women's & Gender Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Orlando is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in American Studies at New York University specializing in desert poetics, migrancy, and queer desire. During their time as a Public Humanities Fellow, Orlando will act as a writer-in-residence with Intervenxions.

 
 
 

Silvia Rivera Alfaro

Silvia Rivera Alfaro is a Central American creative thinker and digital enthusiast who identifies. She is one of the creators of Indisciplinadxs: Feminist Linguistics. Silvia is a student of Hispanic sociolinguistics at the Ph.D. Program in Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures (LAILAC) and a Digital Fellow at CUNY Graduate Center, where she also obtained a Certificate in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. Currently, she is working on a digital dissertation that intertwines linguistic geography and feminist linguistics.