People

Gabriela Alonso-Yañez  is an Associate Professor at the Werklund School of Education. Her research focuses on learning in the context of sustainability and global change. She is interested in understanding the factors and conditions that influence how teams produce integrated, action-oriented socioecological knowledge in networks that include knowledge keepers, local community members and academics. Her full University of Calgary profile can be accessed here. She can be reached at: galonsoy@ucalgary.ca 

Pablo Policzer is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary. A specialist in comparative politics, his research focuses on the evolution of violent conflict - especially among armed actors such as militaries, police forces, and non-state armed groups - in authoritarian and democratic regimes. He held the Canada Research Chair in Latin American Politics (2005-2015), and is a Fellow at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies. He was also an active Fellow at the Latin American Research Centre before being appointed Director in 2015. His book The Rise and Fall of Repression in Chile (Notre Dame University Press, 2009) was named a Choice Magazine "Outstanding Academic Title", and won the 2010 award for best book in Comparative Politics from the Canadian Political Science Association. He obtained his PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his BA (Honours, First Class) in political science from the University of British Columbia. 

Ana Watson is a doctoral candidate in Geography at the University of Calgary (Canada) wherein she is a member of the Environmental Policy & Governance research group. She is originally from Peru and holds an MA degree in Environment and Development from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, and a BSc in Life Science from the National Agrarian University La Molina. Her background includes more than 8 years as a biodiversity specialist with pastoralism and grassland ecology projects in the Andes, as well as biodiversity and ecosystem services action plans for energy projects in the Amazon. She was involved in research projects that identify the conditions that enable participatory environmental governance in Latin America. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on the human dimensions of environmental conservation in Liquified Natural Gas operations in the Amazon. Her main objective is to support efforts that bridge transdisciplinary academic knowledge and decision-making to advance nature conservation and development efforts.

Danilo is a fourth-year PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography, and member of the Environmental Policy and Governance Research Group. He completed a B.Sc in Geographical and Environmental Engineering at the Armed Forces University ESPE, Ecuador, and a M. Eng in Mineral Resources and Energy Engineering at Chonbuk National University (CBNU), South Korea. During his Master´s, Danilo was a member of the COLINS laboratory at CBNU and a visiting student at CeBER and Hydrometallurgy research groups at the University of Cape Town. During that time, he participated in various research projects related to bioremediation. He also has experience working with local communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon as a volunteer and as a professional geographer. His current research focuses on the oil politics in Ecuador's Amazon, specifically addressing participation in environmental regulation, disputes over rents, and violence. 

Alem Cherinet received her undergraduate degrees from the University of Calgary, where she majored in International Relations and Latin American Studies.  As a master’s candidate in the Department of Political Science, her research focuses on issues of conflict, violence, and citizen security in Latin America. Her current project traces the advent of Mexico’s General Law on Forced Disappearance (2017), along with the social and political mechanisms responsible for its development, design, and enactment. Alem is a former resident of the Latin American Research Centre, the Professional Development Chair of the Political Science Graduate Students’ Association, a member of the External Advisory Working Group to the University’s GSA, and an organizational consultant.

Rita Giacalone is Professor of Economic History, Department of Economics, Universidad de Los Andes (Venezuela), and Coordinator of GRUDIR (Regional Integration Research Group). She was Director of the School of Political Science, Coordinator of REDINRE (an ALFA Program network of European and Latin American universities), and Editor of Revista Venezolana de Ciencia Política and of Revista Agroalimentaria.  She has been a Visiting Professor at University of Pennsylvania, Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Universidad Autónoma de México, Universidad de La Plata (Argentina), and Stockholm University. She holds a Ph.D.  in History from Indiana University, and has been beneficiary of a Fulbright-Hayes Scholarship. Her latest publications include “Anti-Americanism and Trade Policy in Brazil and France” (co-author: Gerry Alons) Revista Iberoamericana (Stockholm) 43 (1-2) (2013), “Latin American Answers to Mega-Regional Projects: Options and Limits” in J. Roy (ed.) A New Atlantic Community. The European Union, the US and Latin America. Miami: Jean Monnet Chair-University of Miami, 2015, and Geopolítica y Geo-economía en el proceso globalizador. Bogotá: Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, 2016.

Dr. Kiddle is Associate Professor of history and the Coordinator of the Latin American Studies Program at the University of Calgary. She specializes in the political and cultural history of Mexican foreign relations. She has published articles in the Journal of Latin American Studies and Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos.  Her first monograph, Mexico’s Relations with Latin America during the Cárdenas Era, which is based upon her University of Arizona doctoral dissertation (winner of the 2010 Premio Genaro Estrada from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs) was published by the University of New Mexico Press. As an outgrowth of this project, she developed an interest in the Mexican oil expropriation of 1938's place in inter-American affairs.  She and her colleague in Mexico, Cecilia Zuleta published an anthology of newspaper articles from Latin America reacting to the expropriation (PEMEX, 2014) and they have begun work on a co-authored book tentatively titled The Mexican Oil Expropriation of 1938 in Latin American Politics and Culture, a project which is supported by an Insight Grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Dr. Kiddle received the inaugural Sir Izaak Walton Killam SSHRC Emerging Research Leader Award from the University of Calgary in 2014.

Digital Support. Chelsea Klinke is a Master’s Student in Anthropology at the University of Calgary. Under the supervisory of Dr. Ben McKay, her current research analyses the resilience dynamics of camelid agro-pastoralists in the face of climatic and extractive pressures in the Bolivian Andes. Alongside Bolivian partner organizations and community counterparts, a community-based participatory research initiative grounded in digital storytelling will highlight the role of diversified agroecological models in a shifting landscape and livelihood. This collaboration will continue into her Ph.D. program at the University of Calgary.

Hendrik Kraay is a professor of history at the University of Calgary. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin (1995) and subsequently held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia. Since 1997, he has taught at the University of Calgary. He is the author of Race, State, and Armed Forces in Independence-Era Brazil: Bahia, 1790s-1840s (Stanford University Press, 2001); Days of National Festivity in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1823-1889 (Stanford University Press, 2013), winner of the Conference on Latin American History’s 2014 Warren Dean Memorial Prize for the best book on Brazilian history; and Bahia’s Independence: Popular Politics and Patriotic Festival in Salvador, Brazil, 1824-1900 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019). In addition to numerous articles and book chapters published in English and Portuguese, Kraay has edited or coedited the following books: Afro-Brazilian Culture and Politics: Bahia, 1790s-1990s (M.E. Sharpe, 1998); Nova História Militar Brasileira (with Celso Castro and Vitor Izecksohn, Editora da Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 2004); I Die with My Country: Perspectives on the Paraguayan War, 1864-1870 (with Thomas L. Whigham, University of Nebraska Press, 2004); Negotiating Identities in Modern Latin America (University of Calgary Press, 2007); and Press, Power, and Culture in Imperial Brazil, 1822-1889 (with Celso Thomas Castilho and Teresa Cribelli, University of Nebraska Press, in press [2021]). In 2004, Kraay was visiting professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. His research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Standard Research Grant and Insight Grant programs. In 2014-15, Kraay served as acting director of the Latin American Research Centre. His current research projects are focused on the change in pre-Lenten celebrations from entrudo to carnaval.

Elizabeth Montes Garcés’ research focuses on Latin American prose fiction, Latin American women writers as well as literature and film in Latin America. She has published extensively in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Her area of expertise is Latin American women’s writing. Her book El cuestionamiento de los mecanismos de representación en la novelística de Fanny Buitrago was published by Peter Lang in 1997, and she also edited the volume Relocating Identities in Latin American Cultures (University of Calgary Press, 2007), and Violence in Argentine Literature and Film: 1989-2005  with Carolina Rocha (University of Calgary Press, 2010). She has published several articles on Latin American female Writers in prestigious journals such as Texto crítico, Letras femeninas, Revista de Literatura Mexicana Contemporánea, and Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos. She is currently working on the edition of a special issue of the Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos on the representation of women in Contemporary Spanish and Latin American cartoons.

Alberto Montoya C. Palacios Jr is a visiting postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary. He received a Ph.D. and master’s degrees in International Relations from UNESP (São Paulo State University). His focuses are on theories of war and peace and security and defence cooperation in Latin America. During his Ph.D. research, he shifted from state-centric approaches towards Amerindian societies, such as the Tupi-Guarani and Yanomami, in South America. He is author of two books published in Portuguese by UNESP Press: “The Wars of Revenge and International Relations: a dialogue with Political Anthropology about the Tupi-Guarani and Yanomami (2019)” and “Theories of Preventive Wars and International Relations (2011)”

Topics of Interest include: International Security; Defence Policies in Latin America; Amerindian studies

Roberta Rice is an Associate Professor of Indigenous Politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary, Canada. She is the author of The New Politics of Protest: Indigenous Mobilization in Latin America’s Neoliberal Era (University of Arizona Press, 2012) and the co-editor of Protest and Democracy (University of Calgary Press, 2019) and Re-Imagining Community and Civil Society in Latin America and the Caribbean (Routledge, 2016). Her work has appeared in the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, International Indigenous Policy Journal, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, Latin American Research Review, Comparative Political Studies, and Party Politics. She is currently completing a book project on Indigenous rights and representation in Canada and Latin America. She is also working on a new project on Indigenous activism and extractive industry in Bolivia, Ecuador and the Philippines that is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Adriana is a Doctoral Candidate in the Global Governance and Human Security PhD program at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies (University of Massachusetts Boston.) She holds a MA in Geography from University of Georgia (2015), and a LLB from Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano (2009). She is also a Visiting fellow and former Sessional Instructor for the DEST 393 course (Winter 2019) at University of Calgary, and worked as a RA at University of Alberta from 2018 to 2020. She is currently a Individualized Study Tutor and Subject Matter Expert at Athabasca University.  In the spring of 2019 Adriana received the DAG Chandra Sriram Early Career fellow (Amsterdam, Netherlands). In the summer of 2017, Adriana was recipient of the UMass Boston-SSRC Transdisciplinary Dissertation Proposal Development Program award. Her research interests include critical approaches to transitional justice, peace, and gender studies in Colombia.  Using decolonial feminism and critical approaches to law and peace, her research explores the gender assumptions and identities of peace in the Colombian legal discourse (1946-1991). 

Victoria Simmons teaches migration and citizenship at Mount Royal University. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Carleton University (Canada), an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (U.N.A.M) and a B.A. in Development Studies from the University of Calgary.  Dr. Simmons has authored and co-authored publications on migration in Latin America.