Students
Class of 2023
Advisor: Zephyr Frank
Born and raised in Olympia, WA, Minah graduated from Pomona College with a BA in Environmental Analysis in 2018. Her coursework covered environmental justice, ethnic studies, and community-based pedagogy. Minah's undergraduate thesis focused on the relationship between the environmental and spatial justice movements in Los Angeles after the uprisings of 1992, centering Asian American activism.
Minah's interest in sustainability and interdisciplinary environmentalism has led her to interrogate race, space, and the lived environment through her studies, experiences abroad, and advocacy work. As an M.A. student at CLAS, Minah plans to pursue research that combines...
Class of 2023
Advisors: Alberto Díaz and Vivian Brates
Emilio Espinal was born and raised in San Diego, California. As a bi-racial individual whose father immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic, his experiences have allowed him to gain nuanced perspectives on life as a Latino man in the United States. Having grown up 15 minutes from the border and hearing of the struggles his father and other family members endured in their trek to the United States, Emilio is interested in the U.S.’s immigration process and working to improve it.
Emilio majored in Anthropology and Geography with a...
Class of 2023
Advisors: Alberto Díaz and Vivian Brates
Darrow Hornik was born in Walnut Creek, California, and raised in Palo Alto, California. Darrow majored in Spanish Language and Literature and minored in Human Rights at Stanford University.
During her undergraduate years at Stanford, Darrow focused her studies and time working with the Bay Area immigrant community through the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area, Ravenswood Reads, and the Haas Center for Public Service.
Over the next year, Darrow hopes to explore the US-Mexico borderlands through art and literature. What's more, Darrow will continue her study of language by learning...
Class of 2023
Advisor: Tomás Jiménez
From a Welsh family, but growing up in South East England, Evan studied History and Politics of the Americas at University College London, graduating in 2022 with First Class Honours. During his undergraduate degree, Evan explored the various ways in which rights can be eroded when the state fails, writing his dissertation on the efficacy of human rights politics during the Nicaraguan Contra War.
Evan has taken every opportunity to visit Latin America, for example by volunteering as a Student Support Leader in Arequipa. In the face of Covid restrictions, Evan attended online lectures...
Class of 2023
Advisors: Alberto Díaz and Harold Trinkunas
Chris Maudlin was born in Carbondale, Illinois, and raised in Nogales, Arizona. He moved to Ecuador during high school, gaining a new passion for a better understanding of South America and its unique history. While pursuing his bachelor's at Wheaton College, IL, Chris majored in Spanish and studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile. Immediately after college, Chris commissioned as an officer in the US Army. His military experience exposed him to the complexities of US diplomacy during oversea tours that included Afghanistan, South Korea, Germany, and Chile.
While...
Class of 2023
Advisor: Héctor Hoyos
Maya Návar was born and raised along the U.S.-Mexico Border in El Paso, Texas and La Union, New Mexico. Growing up in a bicultural family and community fueled an interest in the languages, histories, and stories of the borderland region. She graduated with honors and distinction from Stanford University in 2022 with a B.A.H. in Comparative Literature and a B.A. in Linguistics, and with a minor in Iberian and Latin American Cultures.
Maya’s undergraduate thesis, titled “Mirage, Revelation, Rebirth: Representations of Necroviolence and Desert in Contemporary U.S.-Mexican Border Literature”, examined the relationship between land...
Class of 2023
Advisor: Rodolfo Dirzo
Annie was born and raised in Graz, Austria. After finishing school, she spent a year of voluntary civil service working in Cuenca, Ecuador, as a teaching assistant at an integrative school. Encounters with human and more-than-human beings during this time showed her the beauty and potential of working together across boundaries, as well as its inequalities and challenges.
To engage more critically with colonial histories, decolonising international development efforts, and her positionality as a white European person within these structures, Annie first started studying Sociology and Spanish at the University of Graz.
Seeking a...
Class of 2023
Advisors: David Cohen and Penelope Van Tuyl
Estefania Ramirez is from Lamont, a small town in the Central Valley of California. Estefania majored in International Relations with minors in Human Rights and Italian at Stanford University.
As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, Estefania grew up in a predominantly Latine community, where her passion for human rights advocacy began. Estefania has worked with the Office of Immigrant Affairs in Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Office to advance the economic, cultural, social, and political well-being of immigrant communities. She also worked with Trabajadres Unidos Workers United where she managed...
Class of 2023
Advisors: Alberto Díaz and Harold Trinkunas
José Luis Sabau is originally from Cozumel, Mexico. He is interested in the rise of violence in Latin America, particularly in the prominence of organized criminal groups and drug cartels in his native Mexico. He studied Political Science and Economics as an undergraduate student at Stanford, writing an honors thesis on the rise of cartels in Mexico's transition to democracy. Outside of academia, he has worked as a news reporter and columnist for the Miami Herald, El Sol de México, and Excélsior. He hopes to return to Mexico and enact political...
Class of 2023
Advisors: Diego Zambrano and Alberto Díaz
Daniel was born in Caracas, Venezuela and moved to São Paulo, Brazil during their teenage years, having been raised between both countries. This experience would influence their research interests, wanting to understand, as Latin American, the different social complexities that affect immigrants across the continent, having witnessed some of these living in Brazil’s most populous city.
In 2022, Daniel graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the University of São Paulo and has previous research experience in the representation of specific groups within media (particularly from the Middle East) as...
