CLAS Graduate Field Research Awardees

CLAS supports Stanford graduate field research in Latin America.

2024-25

CLAS Field Research Grant

Kelsey Freeman

  • Research: UNSTUCK: Understanding the drivers, obstacles, and systems behind climate-induced migration
  • Location: Guatemala

Matthew Randolph

  • Research: Mapping Black Ecologies in Samaná Bay
  • Location: The Dominican Republic

Bryn Evans

  • Research: “Choreographing a new breath / a retreat / to be free” The Embodied Wisdom of African Diasporic Dance Traditions in Latin America’s Freetowns
  • Location: Colombia

Davi Ferreira Veronese

  • Research: The Political Economy of Deforestation in Decentralized Democracies: Building Evidence from Brazilian Municipalities
  • Location: Brazil

Sergio Sanchez Lopez

  • Research: Socializing and communicating results with the communities: Peatlands actionable knowledge
  • Location: Colombia

Tinker Graduate Field Research Grant

Rodrigo Béllo Carvalho

  • Research: Consequences of Historical and Contemporary Defaunation: A Cross-continental Comparison of Megafauna’s Seed Dispersal Role in African and Neotropical Savannas
  • Location: Brazil

Annis Barron

  • Research: Que viva el bajo mundo: Dembow, Racialization, and Subalternity in Capotillo, Santo Domingo
  • Location: The Dominican Republic

Rachel Zila

  • Research: Social Entrepreneurship Initiatives in Rio and Sâo Paulo
  • Location: Brazil

Shirley Jennifer Serrano Rojas

  • Research: Adaptation in a Changing World: Exploring the Evolutionary Mechanisms of Adaptation to environmental change in tropical ecosystems.
  • Location: Peru

Fabian Andres Carchi Navia

  • Research: Unknown Dichotomies of The Public Domain: The Case Of FIBRA-EIn Creating Economic Development and Fostering Inequality in Mexico (2016-2024)
  • Location: Mexico City, Mexico

Brandon Rubio

  • Research: Lucha Libre as a canvas for subversive art in Mexico City
  • Location: Mexico City, Mexico

Rebeca Sauly Santa Maria Granados

  • Research: The Promises and Results of Populism: Tlaxcala’s Public Health Services underAndrés Manuel López Obrador
  • Location: Harvard University

Edgar (TJ) Francisco

  • Research: Evaluation of Reptile, Amphibian, Bird, and Mammal Diversity and Habitat Use in AKAE Biological Preserve
  • Location: Orinoquía, Vichada, Colombia

Enru (Xinwen Zhang)

  • Research: Immigrants as Fourth Mestizo: Cultural Integration and Identity Construction in Brazilian Literature
  • Location: Brazil

Mariana Calvo

  • Research: The Empire That Never Left: European Capital and the Business of Sovereignty in Post-Independence Latin America
  • Location: Resistencia (Chaco), Argentina; Santa Fe, Argentina; Lima, Peru

Karen Rojas

  • Research: Master’s Thesis Research
  • Location: Chavín de Huántar, Peru
2023-24

CLAS Graduate Field Research Grant

Elias Aceves

  • Research: CODECA and the Popular and Plurinational Constituent Assembly Process
  • Location: Guatemala

Isa Calero Forero

  • Research: The Anti-Gender Movement: Impact of the “Gender Ideology” Narratives in the Colombian Peace Accord Plebiscite
  • Location: Colombia

Mercedes Martínez Milantchi

  • Research: Latin American Summer School on Social Issues
  • Location: Chile

Ruben Diaz Vasquez

  • Research: Between Tenochtitlan and CalifAztlan: Making Mexicanidad and the Poetics of Indigeneity, Performance, and Culture
  • Location: Mexico

Cydni Gordon

  • Research: Em Nome de deus (ou Exu): The Influence of Religiosity and Negritude on Mental Health of Afro-Brazilians in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
  • Location: Brazil

Tania Flores

  • Research: “A Poet in Montevideo and the Black Fígaro: Diasporic Consciousness, Transatlantic Race-Making, and the Afro-Uruguayan Press”
  • Location: Argentina and Uruguay

Nicolás Forero-Villarreal

  • Research: The Global Governance of human rights in Mexico: Understanding the intersection between architecture, design and law through the detention of unaccompanied child migrants within migration centers
  • Location: Mexico

Zaith Lopez

  • Research: Latin American Summer School on Social Issues
  • Location: Chile

Victor Manuel Marquez Padrenan

  • Research: Biblical Landscapes. Labor and Indigeneity in Wallmapu, Chile
  • Location: Chile

eli melgar

  • Research: Plants in Mesoamérica, 1600-1800
  • Location: Mexico and Guatemala

Davíd Morales

  • Research: Educator Encounters that Transcend Colonial-Imperial Borders, Activist Pedagogies that Transcend Classroom Walls.
  • Location: Mexico

Esteban Salmón Perrilliat

  • Research: Latin American Summer School on Social Issues
  • Location: Chile

Sergio Sanchez

  • Research: Replicability of the Favorable Conditions of Lithium Extraction in the Atacama Region
  • Location: Argentina and Chile

Ana Elena Smith

  • Research: Adjusting to Life in the United States: A Collage-Based Exploration of Sequoia High School's
  • Location: Redwood City, CA

Tinker Graduate Field Research Grant

Elias Aceves

  • Research: Indigenous Land Titling in the Chapare Region of Bolivia
  • Location: Bolivia

Lola Amaya

  • Research: Erasure in the Margins: State Sanctioned Violence and Collective Amnesia in El Salvador
  • Location: El Salvador

Adrian Blattner

  • Research: Breaking the Bubble - The Determinants and Effects of Contact
  • Location: Brazil

Natalie Chaudhuri

  • Research: The Violent Foundations of Incumbency: Central American Presidents and Changing Rates of Crime
  • Location: Guatemala and El Salvador

Cydni Gordon

  • Research: Por Deus: A case study of, understanding the Saude Mental of Afro-Brazilians in Salvador, Bahia
  • Location: Brazil

Tomás Guarna

  • Research: Transnational Startup Cultures in Mexico City
  • Location: Mexico

Karen Hosino

  • Research: How do K-12 American/International Schools in São Paulo, Brazil, support the cultural identity formation of Third Culture Kids (TCKs)?
  • Location: Brazil

Vlasta Rasocha

  • Research: Contact at Work: Exposure to Political Opinions in the Brazilian Labor Market
  • Location: Brazil

Christian Robles-Baez

  • Research: Assessing the scope and feasibility of a database on the commercial exchange between Brazil and the United States
  • Location: Brazil

Emily Russell

  • Research: LABOR FOR EMPIRE: the status of immigrant labor in modern Cuba
  • Location: Cuba

Miryea Sturdivant

  • Research: COLOMBIANAS Y CASTIGO:
  • Location: Colombia
2022-23

CLAS Graduate Field Research Grant

Christian Robles-Baez 

  • Research: THE MAKING OF A WORLD MARKET FROM THE SOUTH: COFFEE IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY BRAZIL
  • Location: Brazil

Annie Obernoster

  • Research: Searching for roots. The role of community agroecology farms for Latinx communities
    in San José, California
  • Location: San José, California

Katja Schwaller

  • Research: Unequal landscapes of digital capitalism – Investigating the relationality between neighborhoods in Mexico City and the Bay Area in times of remote working policies of Silicon Valley tech companies
  • Location: Mexico City, Mexico

Michelle Ha

  • Research: Early Twentieth Century Korean Indentureship on Yucatecan Haciendas
  • Location: Mérida, Yucatán

Cristian Soler

  • Research: Curating Dehumanization in the Age of Hyper-globalization: Approach to Treating with World Latinx Artistic Practices
  • Location: Ecuador and Peru

Minah Choi

  • Research: “Mapping socio-environmental mobilizations in Argentina’s Paraná Delta”
  • Location: Argentina

Sergio Sanchez Lopez

  • Research: Social and Ecological Values of Colombian Peatlands
  • Location: Colombia

Jameelah Morris

  • Research: “Contesting Colombia’s Paradise: Youth, Violence, and the Struggle for Black Life Across Generations”
  • Location: Colombia

Tinker Graduate Field Research Grant

Minah Choi

  • Research: Climate Change Resilience in Argentina: Community and State Perspectives on Wetland Conservation and the Ley de Humedales
  • Location: Argentina

Nina Maria de Meira Borba

  • Research: Enslaved Lives in the Far West of Brazil: Building Family and Community
  • Location: Brazil

Olavo Passos de Souza

  • Research: Liberal Networks and the Development of Brazilian National Identity
  • Location: Brazil

Rita Kamani-Rendeo

  • Research: Pedagogies of Border Thinking Across Hemispheric Contexts: Exploring the Intersections of Im/migration and Education in Colombia
  • Location: Colombia

Daniel Tovar Medina

  • Research: Political implications of the Temporary Protection Status for Venezuelan migrants in Colombia: An Assessment of Rhetoric and Social Shift Through the Lens of Immigration Policy
  • Location: Colombia

Melissa de Franco

  • Research: Health Policy Modeling of Breast Cancer in Mexico
  • Location: Mexico

Matthew Gilbert

  • Research: Hearing the Human: Sound, Rational Thought & Humanities Research
  • Location: Mexico

Michelle Ha

  • Research: Sisal/Henequén: A Study of Yucatecan Agave Taxonomy and Fiber Production
  • Location: Mexico

Victor Manuel Márquez Padreñan

  • Research: Pastoral Work and State-building Processes in Chiapas, Mexico, and Temuco, Chile
  • Location: Mexico and Chile
2021-22

CLAS Graduate Field Research Grant

Jaime Landinez Aceros

  • Research: The Uses of Biodiversity: Technoscience and Post-Conflict Aspirations in Colombia
  • Location: Colombia

Esteban Salmón Perrilliat

  • Research: The administration of impunity: An ethnography of criminal prosecution in Mexico City
  • Location: Mexico City, Mexico

Luísa Genes

  • Research: The role of dispersal and recruitment limitation in the recovery of tropical secondary forests
  • Location: Costa Rica

María de la Luz Daniel

  • Research: Consumers' literacy and decision-making: The case of the private health insurance market in Chile
  • Location: Chile

Laura Menendez Gorina

  • Research: From Houses to Ruins: Narratives of Homes in Modern Barcelona and Havana
  • Location: Havana, Cuba

Tinker Graduate Field Research Grant

Xavi Luis Burgos

  • Research: Sacred Epistemologies in the Caribbean: The Pedagogical Possibilities of Afro-diasporic Religions
  • Location: Cuba, The Dominican Republic, Haiti

Davíd Morales

  • Research: Towards a Theory of Intercambio: Social Justice Teaching and Movement-building Across Empire
  • Location: Mexico

María Gloria Robalino

  • Research: Heightened Worlds: Vertiginous Imaginaries in the Latin American Pacific
  • Location: Mexico
2020-21

Tinker Graduate Field Research Grant

Raymundo López

  • Research: Aire, Tierra y Fuego: Assessing Grassroots Mobilization and Environmental Movements in Puerto Rico
  • Location: Remote
2019-20

Alan Chávez-Arroyo 

  • Research: Conflict and Queerness –The Effect of Armed Conflict and Policy on the LGBT
  • Location: Bogotá, Colombia

Eda Benites

  • Research: Forensic Anthropology Training in Waukesha County Medical
  • Location: Wisconsin, U.S.A

Jessica Cordiglia

  • Research: Quechua Studies/Language Revitalization
  • Location: Lima, Peru

Tyler McFadden

  • Research: Green deserts or conservation opportunities: pollinator conservation and sustainable management in Chilean timber plantations
  • Location: Valdivia, Chile

Rolando Garcia Miron 

  • Research: Judicial Independence and the Challenges from Charismatic Populism: A Case Study of the Mexican Supreme Court
  • Location: Mexico City, Mexico 

Suzanne Ou 

  • Research: How does soil microbial community from different land use histories affect regeneration of tropical forests?
  • Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

Elizabeth Prosser

  • Research: Identity development and integration in Chinese-Peruvians and Japanese-Peruvians
  • Location: Lima, Peru

Pablo Seward Howard 

  • Research: Migrant Becomings: Communal Horizons and the Double Bind of Vulnerability in Chile Latino
  • Location: Santiago, Chile; Antofagasta, Chile
2018-19

CLAS Graduate Field Research Grant

Jaime Landinez Aceros

  • Research: Latin American Summer School on Social Issues (LASI) Chile 2019
  • Location: Santiago, Chile

Claire Maass

  • Research: The Lives and Living Conditions of Enslaved Africans and Afro-descendants in the Central Coast of Peru During the Late Colonial Period
  • Location: Peru

Tyler McFadden

  • Research: Green deserts or conservation opportunities: pollinator conservation and sustainable management in Chilean timber plantations
  • Location: Valdivia, Chile

Valentina Ramai

  • Research: Latin American Summer School on Social Issues (LASI) Chile 2019
  • Location: Santiago, Chile

Grace Eliana Alexandrino Ocana

  • Research: Rights to a Heritage City: Working-Class Citizens, Urban Heritage and Conservation in Lima, Peru
  • Location: Lima, Peru

Gabriela Oppitz

Research: Em terras trópico-americanas: For an Archaeology of the Nonidentity in the Lowlands of South America

Location: Brazil

Weronika Hanna Tomczyk

  • Research: Pre-dissertation Fieldwork and Preparations in Peru: Andean Zooarchaeology
  • Location: Peru

Edgar Franco Vivanco

  • Research: Strategies of Indigenous Resistance and Accommodation in Colonial Yucatan
  • Location: Mexico

Tinker Graduate Field Research Grant

Jaime Landinez Aceros

  • Research: Preliminary fieldwork for the Ph.D. Research Proposal “Ecologies of War in Colombia. Landscapes of Dispossession, Toxicity and Care”
  • Location: Colombia

Arjuna Dibley

  • Research: Creating a Climate for Change? Carbon Pricing and Long-Term Policy Reform in Mexico
  • Location: Mexico

Daniel Hernandez

  • Research: Ethnographic Fictions: From Naturalism to Transnaturalism in Cuban Literary Ethnography
  • Location: Cuba

Zaith Lopez

  • Research: Borderland Addiction: Substance Abuse among Deportees in Tijuana, Mexico
  • Location: Tijuana, Mexico 

Esteban Salmón Perrilliat

  • Research: Poverty and Injustice in Mexico City’s Urban Margins
  • Location: Mexico

Valentina Ramia

  • Research: The Measurement of Fear in Asylum Law: An Ethnography of Legal Evidence of Well-Founded Fear of Persecution in Ecuador
  • Location: Ecuador

Gemma Elizabeth Smith

  • Research: Understanding Multi-Level Participatory Governance in International Watersheds
  • Location: Mexico

Romina Wainberg

  • Research: Darkest Stones: The Impact of Long-Term Mining in Southeastern Brazilian Culture
  • Location: Brazil
2017-18

Elix Colón

  • Research: From Socialism to Sociality: Growing Old in Contemporary Havana
  • Location: Cuba

Izabel Costa da Fonseca 

  • Research: Labor Market Returns to Higher Education in Brazil
  • Location: Brazil

Rachel Engstrand

  • Research: Investigating the Effects of Gold Mining on Soil Health and the Potential for Ecosystem Recovery
  • Location: Peru

Tyler McFadden

  • Research: Effects of Exotic Timber Plantations of Keystone Species Interactions: Consequences for Maintaining Biodiversity in Southern Chile
  • Location: Chile

Santiago Pardo Rodríguez

  • Research: Social Legitimacy of Judges in Times of Transition: The Case of the Colombian Tribunal for Peace
  • Location: Colombia

Anna Toledano

  • Research: Collecting Independence: The Science and Politics of Natural History Museums in New Spain, 1770-1820
  • Location: Guatemala

Adela Zhang 

  • Research: Dialogue and Development: Evaluating Institutional Conflict Resolution in Peru
  • Location: Peru
2016-17

Elinor Benami

  • Research: Brazilian Coffee Famers and Drought: Effects of Eco-Certification on Farmer Resilience
  • Location: Brazil

Marguerite DeLoney

  • Research: Cartographies of Belonging: Decolonial Explorations into the Making of Place with the Community of Portobelo
  • Location: Panama

Claire Maass

  • Research: History of African Diaspora in Peru from an Archeological Perspective
  • Location: Peru

David McMahon

  • Research: Soil Nutrients and Sustainability in Brazilian Eucalyptus Forestry
  • Location: Brazil 

Grace Ocana

  • Research: Contested Metropolis: Lima’s Urban Heritage as the Perpetuation of Historical Structural Violence
  • Location: Peru

Jeffery Smith

  • Research: Impacts of Tropical Land Use on Anthropod Biodiversity: Implications for Food Webs and Ecosystems
  • Location: Costa Rica