Staff
CURRENT Editors
Laura Carty
Laura Carty (she/her/ella) is a Jamaican-American writer, artist and researcher interested in the relationship between storytelling and identity formation within Latin America. Her research currently focuses on Costa Rica and Jamaican migrant workers in Limón Province and their relationship with the multinational United Fruit Company. She has also conducted field research in Oaxaca, Mexico on media portrayals of Central American migrants and interned at the US Embassy of Costa Rica in the public affairs/press office. She is currently pursuing a MA in Latin American and Caribbean studies and has been published on BBC Radio 4. She is currently working on a documentary.
PREVIOUS editors
Carmen Valeria Escobar Castillo (2024)
Carmen Valeria Escobar Castillo (she/her/ella) is a Salvadoran journalist who began her career at El Faro, covering Congress. In 2019, she joined GatoEncerrado, where she coordinated the fact-checking section and published investigations on politics and human rights. Worked as well as professor at Universidad Centroamerica José Simeón Cañas UCA and her most recent work can be seen as a multimedia producer for AJ+ Español, covering the Central American region. She is currently pursuing a joint Master’s degree in Journalism and Latin American Studies at New York University. Her work has been published in outlets such as The Washington Post, El País, Pikara Magazine, Vice Latinoamérica, and Wired. In 2021, she was recognized as one of the top 10 journalists under 30 by the Thomson Foundation and was included in the IWMF’s Women to Watch list. She considers herself a full-time pessimist and a closeted optimist, this push her to continue being a journalist. As a child, she wanted to be a cashier, and now she only dreams of living by the beach.
Natalia Salazar (2023-2024)
Natalia Salazar is a researcher and journalist who is interested in exploring the complex relationships between Latin American countries and colonies and the United States, as well as the anti-Black sentiment that is present in so much of the world. She was previously published in El Centro de Periodismo Investigativo where she covered how mental health calls are handled in Puerto Rico. Currently, she is pursuing two MAs in Latin American and Caribbean studies and International Journalism.
Alfredo Eladio Moreno (2022-2023)
Fredo is a journalist and photographer from his native Houston, Texas. He has reported since 2020 on Mexican politics and immigration policy in the United States, and especially on Nicaragua and the Ortega-Murillo regime. He is a graduate student of Journalism and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, where he is a staff writer at the Latin America News Dispatch.
Kiana Katrisha Paclibon (2022-2023)
Born in Manila, raised in California, and based in New York, she’s a storyteller with a passion for cross-cultural histories. Kiana spent 4 years in Córdoba, Argentina, working as a translator/interpreter and copywriter. With a background in psychology and international relations, she’s dedicated to telling people-focused stories, particularly those centering on South America’s racial and ethnic minorities and queer communities.
Contributors
Founders
Roque Planas (former director)
Roque’s works as editor of the Huffington Post’s Latino Voices vertical, where he covers Latino politics and Latin American affairs. Before joining HuffPost, he worked as a staff writer for the Fox News Latino and the New York Daily News. His work as a freelance journalist has appeared in Foreign Policy Magazine, the World Politics Review, and the New Internationalist. He holds an M.A. in history from Texas State University at San Marcos and earned an M.A. in the global joint master’s program in journalism and Latin American studies at New York University, where he was a Henry MacCracken Fellow.
Andrew O’Reilly (former editor-in-chief)
Andrew’s work has appeared in ESPN The Magazine, Ralph Lauren Magazine, Hemispheres, The New York Times and The New York Daily News among others. He holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of Pittsburgh and a joint M.A. in journalism and Latin American studies from New York University. His regional focus in reporting is Mexico and Central America. Andrew now works at Fox News Latino.
Mari Hayman (former editor-in-chief)
Mari is a native of Washington state and earned a B.A. in comparative literature at Stanford University. She holds a master’s degree in journalism and Latin American studies at New York University , where she focused on memory and human rights in Uruguay. Mari now works as as managing editor for Americas Quarterly.
Rachel Brooks-Ames Lachenmeier (staff writer)
Rachel was a Henry MacCracken Fellow at New York University , where she earned a master’s degree in Latin American Studies. She grew up in Austin, Texas, and earned her bachelor’s degree from Smith College in Latin American/Latino Studies. Her past work has focused on Mexico, U.S.-Mexico relations, and Mexican Americans and immigrants in Texas. Rachel is currently earning a doctorate at the Centro Latinoamericano-Suizo at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.