Staff
Colleen Connolly (editor-in-chief)
Colleen is a journalist pursuing a master’s degree in journalism and Latin American and Caribbean studies at NYU. She is also a Foreign Language Area Studies fellow studying Quechua. She previously worked as a digital news editor at the Chicago Tribune, where she managed the homepage and social media accounts and published stories about immigration, tourism at Machu Picchu and Chicago history. Her reporting has also appeared in Smithsonian magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review and NBC Chicago.
Alanna Elder (deputy editor)
Alanna is pursuing a master’s in journalism and Latin American and Caribbean Studies and studying Quechua at NYU. She has experience in general assignment reporting for public radio in Alaska and Wyoming and a B.S. in agroecology. Her research interests include land issues, farming, gender and social movements in the Andes.
Emily Corona (editor-at-large)
Emily is a New York-based journalist and translator with bylines in NPR’s Latino USA, NACLA, PBS, Latino Rebels and the Mexican newspaper Reforma, where for three years she covered politics, education, social movements, environment and religion. Previously she was the editor-in-chief of LAND and its flagship daily newsletter TILA. She also worked as a fact-checker intern at the New York Times Licensing Group. A Dean Fellow and Tinker grant recipient at NYU, she’s currently pursuing a joint MA in Journalism and Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
STAFF WRITERS
Nicolas is a photographer and researcher specializing in social conflicts and human rights. He is the cofounder of Colombia-based VELA Collective and has been featured on BBC, Bloomberg, America’s Quarterly Magazine and others. VELA’s work uncovering the guerrilla dissident phenomena and paramilitary incursions in northern Colombia forced him to leave the country in 2018. Nicolas now resides and works in New York.
Steven is a journalist, fact-checker, and researcher from Washington, DC, pursuing a master’s degree in journalism and Latin American and Caribbean studies. His reporting has appeared in BBC, The Nation, Christian Science Monitor, and The New Republic, where he worked as a fellow.
Laura S. Diaz
Laura is a Mexican undergraduate student at NYU double-majoring in Journalism and Media, Culture, and Communication. She’s thinking of pursuing a Masters in Food Studies, bringing her interests for media, research, sustainability and culture together over her love for food and politics. She speaks Spanish, English, French, and is currently learning Portuguese. She’s written for Washington Square News and Her Campus NYU, and did Model UN for 10 years.
Chase DiBenedetto
Chase is a current Master’s candidate in Journalism and International Relations at New York University, with interests in audio editing, foreign reporting and international human rights regimes. A California native, she received her B.A. from UC San Diego in both International Studies and Anthropology, focusing on humanitarian aid and human rights on the border.
Summer Eldemire
Summer is a Jamaican reporter currently studying a journalism master’s in the Cultural Reporting and Criticism concentration. She worked at the Jamaica Observer and her work has appeared in The Intercept. Her beat topics are organized crime, social commentary and cults.
Jacquelyn is currently a Foreign Language Area Studies Fellow at New York University, where she is studying Quechua and pursuing a masters degree in Latin American Studies and Journalism. Her research focuses on contemporary social change in Bolivia and Peru, with an emphasis on transitional justice and initiatives for well-being and resilience in Andean communities. In 2016 she filmed and produced a documentary about families fighting for reconciliation in a post-dictatorship Bolivian society.
Vaclav is currently pursuing a Masters in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at CLACS. Previously, he completed a triple-BA in Sociology, Spanish and Global Liberal Studies (Concentration in Politics, Rights, and Development) in May 2017. His undergraduate thesis was concerned with the transitional justice system in his home country of Guatemala.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega
Emiliano is a Mexican science journalist and graduate student at NYU’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. Before moving to New York, he spent a couple of years freelancing for publications such as Science, Nature, Scientific American or WWF. He was also an editorial intern at Radio Ambulante, NPR’s only Spanish-language podcast. Emiliano has focused on covering Latin American research and science policy, a beat that has been chronically underreported in the mainstream media.
Paola Nagovitch
Paola is a Puerto Rican journalist and student pursuing a double-BA in Journalism and Political Science at NYU. She has interned as an editorial producer for CNN.com Opinion and written for Washington Square News about topics ranging from social issues to the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. Her reporting and research interests include colonial legacies and the relationship between the U.S. and Latin American countries.
Cecilia Nowell
Cecilia is a New York-based journalist whose writing focuses on feminism, migration, political art and Latin America. She has bylines in Ms. Magazine, Bitch Magazine, Bust Magazine, The Establishment and Bedford + Bowery. In a former life, she worked as a paralegal at an immigration law firm in Boston. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in journalism and international relations at NYU.
Cameron Oakes
Cameron is a journalist pursuing a bachelor’s degree in journalism and sociology at NYU. She currently works in documentary development and freelances her print/digital reporting. Cameron speaks intermediate Spanish, elementary Italian,and beginner conversational Hebrew and Arabic. Her current bylines appear in Haaretz English, Her Culture Magazine, and Cooper Squared.
Maria Olloqui
Maria is a Spanish undergraduate student at New York University pursuing a double-major in Journalism and Language and Mind, with a minor in Chinese. She speaks Spanish, English, Chinese, and is currently learning Italian. Maria has written for Washington Square News, writing about topics ranging from culture to fashion. She attended a New York Fashion Week show in 2019 as a writer and photographer for WSN. Maria has also interned at Univision News Network for four years. Looking forward, she hopes to cover investigative reporting, fashion journalism, and Latin American research.
Néstor David Pastor is a writer from Queens, New York. His work has appeared in The Nation, Latino USA and OkayAfrica, among other publications. He currently works for the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) and the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College.
Eliana Pérez
Eliana is a recent graduate of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, where she earned a dual degree in Spanish-language and business journalism. She combined her specializations early in her master’s program, writing about the economic implications of the increasing Puerto Rican population in the states following Hurricane Maria. She has reported for El Diario Nueva York and NBC Chicago, as well as entertainment news publications in Los Angeles.
Melanie Pineda
Melanie is an undergraduate journalism student at NYU double majoring in journalism and Latin American studies. She has worked as a translator in immigration law offices around Washington, D.C., and is currently one of the opinion editors for NYU’s Washington Square News, where she writes about a range of issues pertaining to Latin America and Latinx issues. In addition to being a journalist, she also has ambitions of becoming an immigration and human rights lawyer.
Javier Porras
Javier is a Mexican student pursuing a double-BA in Latin American Studies and Economics. His current thesis explores the changing roles of women within the Zapatista movement from 1994 to the present.
Andrés Saravia
Andrés is a Mexican student pursuing a triple-BA in Journalism, Politics, and French. He held a fellowship with the office of NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio during his reelection campaign, and has also been involved with groups ranging from Amnesty International to College Democrats NYU.
Leo is a journalist and researcher pursuing a master’s degree in journalism and Latin American studies at NYU. His reporting has appeared in Roads & Kingdoms, Street Sheet, and Cinema Escapist, and he previously worked as a producer at The Players’ Tribune. His research interests include freedom of the press and the rise of digital media in Latin America.
Josh Aaron Siegel
Josh is an undergraduate student at NYU double-majoring in Journalism and Anthropology. He has worked in documentary production and writes about history and culture as an intern for Untapped Cities. His research interests include migration and visual culture in Latin America and the Middle East.
Contributors
Peter is a British freelance journalist based in Mexico City. He has previously worked as an English-language editor at The News Mexico and Xinhua’s English-language Latin America desk.
Gabriela is an Ecuadorian student pursuing a B.S. in Media, Culture and Communication at NYU. She held a multimedia journalism internship at Diario Tiempo Argentino in Buenos Aires, where she produced stories focused on ethnic minorities, such as the invisibility of Afro-Argentines in the Argentinean traditional history and public sphere. She has also freelanced for several media outlets in Ecuador and New York. Her reporting and research interests include foreign and investigative reporting, gender violence, migration, ethnic minorities and international politics.
Alvaro Céspedes is a Mexican journalist currently pursuing a double master’s degree in journalism and Latin American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He has conducted research in the Peruvian Andes, where he’s doing a thesis on the narratives of cultural memory of the internal armed conflict. His journalistic works focus on stories related to the intersection between immigration, social justice, and culture. In the United States, he has done freelance work for Texas Observer and Texas Standard. In Mexico, he has worked with Vice and Letras Libres. He believes in the power of words as a means for change.
Marc is a New York reporter who previously worked for Japan’s largest newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun. Prior to becoming a reporter, he worked on political campaigns in New Jersey and spent a year studying in Europe. He’s now pursuing a degree in journalism at New York University.
Santiago O’Donnell is the foreign editor at Página 12 newspaper in Argentina and a journalism professor at NYU-Buenos Aires.
Emilia is pursuing a dual master’s in Journalism and European and Mediterranean Studies at NYU. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in English and a minor in Italian Studies. Her work has been published in The Poughkeepsie Journal, Hudson Valley News, and Borgen Magazine, and she is an editor at the New York Transatlantic.
Nelson Oliveira
Nelson is a Brazilian-American journalist based in New York City. He recently spent three years as a local news reporter for three different Hearst publications in Connecticut: The New Canaan News, the News-Times and the Stamford Advocate. Nelson has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Stony Brook University and he’s now pursuing a master’s degree in the Studio 20 digital journalism program at New York University, where he’s exploring new digital story formats and new ways to run and fund news organizations.
Kayla is a journalist pursuing a master’s degree in journalism and International Relations at NYU. She also works as a Communications Coordinator at the Research Alliance for NYC Schools at NYU Steinhardt. Kayla has worked as a research fellow and staff writer for Upworthy and GOOD Magazine, and her reporting has also been featured in On She Goes, Make Change Magazine, Blavity, and Houstonia Magazine. She served as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Indonesia, where she also co-edited the Fulbright Indonesia blog, Indonesiaful. Her reporting interests include human rights, race and gender issues, food politics, and conflict resolution.
PAST Contributors
Alison is a Missouri native and New York City freelance writer who has wanted to cover Latin America since studying Spanish in Central America. After moving to Brooklyn, her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Daily News, the Manhattan Times and Women’s eNews. She earned a master’s degree in journalism and Latin American and Caribbean studies at New York University. Her thesis focused on immigration policies after September 11, including counterterrorism measures, and their effects on the daily lives of immigrants in New York City.
Isabel is a free lance journalist and anthropologist from Colombia and a 2018 alumni of NYU’s journalism and Latin American and Caribbean studies graduate program. Before that she was a researcher at Colombia’s National Center of Historic Memory, there she worked on projects on sexual violence as a war crime, the gender aspects of the Colombian armed conflict and the symbolic reparation of victims through the collection of their life histories. Her beat topics are memory and the legacies of armed conflict, sexual and gender violence and social justice.
Raisa Camargo studies at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where she is pursuing a double major in comparative international relations and minoring in French. Raisa grew up in New York City, Queens, with Colombian parents. As an intern reporter at Hispanic Link News Service in Washington, she is focusing on issues that affect the Hispanic community, with particular emphasis on immigration and the Western Hemisphere.
Reinhard Cate is a native of Alameda, California. He is a graduate of Santa Clara University with a B.S. in Political Science and New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism institute with an M.A. in Journalism. He is a photographer and filmmaker and his work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the New York Observer Magazine, Alpinist Magazine, Fox News, Frontline World and BBC World News. He recently finished a documentary film on the clash between Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. An avid rock climber and adventurer, Reinhard has traveled much of the world but has focused his work primarily on the Middle East. You can see some of his photo and video work at www.reinhardcate.com. You can follow him on twitter at @reinhardcate.
Self-taught photographer JP Catepillán was born Puerto Natales, in the Magallanes region of Chile. He graduated with a degree in History, Geography and Civic Education from the Universidad Austral de Chile de Valdivia. He also studied regional and municipal public affairs at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado and political science at the Universidad de Chile. He is married and has two children. His photos can be viewed at www.jpcatepillan.cl and www.flickr.com/photos/chilefotojp.
Dusty is a writer based in New York City, and a producer of LAND’s podcast, Radio Dispatch. He has reported for The Nation magazine, NPR’s Latino USA and Eight by Eight magazine, among other places. He speaks English, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian with varying degrees of success, and is currently a Quechua-language FLAS Fellow at New York University.
Cleuci is a New York-based journalist from Brasília, Brazil. She speaks English, Portuguese and French.
Von Diaz is a native of Puerto Rico and spent most of her life in Atlanta, GA. Von is a graduate of Agnes Scott College, where she earned a B.A. in Women’s Studies and focused her research on women in Latin America and the developing world. She has worked in community advocacy and communications for a variety of nonprofit organizations focused on women and children. She now holds a dual M.A. in journalism and Latin American and Caribbean studies at New York University.
Juan is a journalist and photographer from Caracas, Venezuela. He holds a B.A. in philosophy and Latin American studies from Swarthmore College. Juan Víctor holds an M.A. from New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He has worked in Ecuador, France, Cuba, Mexico, Vietnam, the Unites States and his native Venezuela. To see some of his photographic work, go to www.juanvictorfajardo.com
Jason Farbman is a Foreign Language/Area Studies Fellow at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, where he is comparing class consciousness amongst workers in factory occupations in Argentina and the United States during times of economic crisis. A former Green Party candidate for State Representative in Chicago, Jason has since been an organizer for LGBT rights and in the anti-war movement in Seattle, both in civilian movements and as a close supporter of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Themes of struggle and community are featured in the music he writes and performs under the name Applekicker.
Nicole is a Henry MacCracken Fellow at New York University, where she is earning a masters degree in Global Journalism and Latin American Studies. She is from New York City but has lived and traveled throughout the Caribbean, where she studied, wrote and worked as an English and Spanish teacher. She is particularly interested in contemporary culture in Havana, Cuba. Nicole earned her bachelor’s degree in International Literary and Visual Studies at Tufts University.
Alexandra Hall
Alex is a Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellow at New York University. She is pursuing a masters degree in Journalism and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Alex served as a Fulbright Scholar in the Dominican Republic. She has a bachelors degree in Foreign Policy in the Americas from Vanderbilt University. She is also a photographer in New York City.
Nikolas Kozloff is a New York-based writer specializing in political and environmental topics. A former academic, he received his doctorate in Latin American history from Oxford University in 2002. Prior to writing his first book, he worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, where he conducted research papers on Venezuela. He has provided political analysis on Latin America for such media outlets as BBC, WNYC’s Brian Lehrer, C-SPAN Washington Journal, and even put in a guest appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Though he writes frequently on Latin America for such online publications as the Huffington Post, in more recent years he has focused increasingly on environmental topics.
Matt Landau is the founder of the Panama Report, an online travel and investment magazine. He has been featured in publications such as GQ, The New York Times and BusinessWeek for his take on life and investment in Central America.
Christopher is a Portuguese-language FLAS fellow at New York University. Previously, he worked as a researcher with a private security firm and as a writer for InSight Crime, a news organization focused on crime in Latin America.
Patrick is a graduate student earning his master’s degree in Latin American Studies at New York University. Originally from Houston, Texas, he has lived and traveled extensively throughout Latin America learning, observing and absorbing the culture, politics and history of the region.
Camila is a Colombian reporter currently pursuing a masters degree in Journalism and Latin American studies at New York University. Camila worked three years for the political news website La Silla Vacía in Bogotá. She moved to New York two years ago and has published her work in WNYC, africasacountry.com, and Feet in 2 Worlds. Camila also worked as a translator for Democracy Now! En Español during the summer of 2014 and as a reporter for the South African website Ground Up during the summer of 2013. She has a bachelors degree in Political Science from the Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia, and an M.A. in Sociology from The New School for Social Research in New York.
Molly O’Toole has worked for a dozen publications, from Los Angeles Magazine and USA Today to current contributions at Newsweek International and The Associated Press. She most recently returned from three months in Mexico City, working for the AP and on her thesis about U.S.-Mexico relations. Molly earned her M.A. from New York University in the global joint master’s program for journalism and International Relations. She graduated cum laude from Cornell University and is a native of San Diego, California.
Marisa Raditsch is a California native who has lived in Mexico for four years while studying International Relations with a focus on Latin American Studies at the University of Guadalajara.
Paola is a native of San Diego, California. She graduated summa cum laude from Wellesley College where she majored in history and psychology. As an undergraduate, Paola spent time in Latin America interning at El Financiero newspaper in Costa Rica and conducting thesis research in Argentina. Paola was a Henry MacCracken Fellow in New York University’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies program, where she earned her M.A.
Joel moved to Spain after graduating from Glasgow University with an M.A. in Hispanic Studies. After four years as a sports journalist in Madrid, he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he is now based and works as a freelance journalist and T.V. producer.
James is an independent photojournalist based in Guatemala who specializes in documenting that country’s post-war social movement. Raised in Mexico City, James holds a B.A. in Cultural Geography from the University of California at Los Angeles. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including the Indypendent of New York and Yes! Magazine, and can be viewed at Mi Mundo.
Luisa is a German-Argentine journalist from Berlin and Buenos Aires. She is currently completing a graduate degree in Cultural Reporting and Criticism at New York University’s Journalism Institute, and has worked as a reporter in London, Berlin, and now New York.
Mike earned degrees in political science and journalism from the University of Pittsburgh. After graduating from college in 2006, Mike joined the Peace Corp and spent two and half years living and working in El Salvador. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in political management at George Washington University.
Katie is a journalist based New York City and a Henry MacCracken Fellow at New York University. After a long-term internship at Democracy Now, she worked as editor in chief of IndyKids, a nationally-distributed print and online newspaper written for and by children. She speaks Spanish and French and has studied and worked in Chile, Spain, France and Ireland.
Francis is a 4th year undergrad at Brown University concentrating in International Relations and Latin American Studies. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Francis has written about Latin American political and economic issues for several student and professional publications. He is particularly interested in news from Puerto Rico and Brazil. He lived for six months in Rio de Janeiro, where he became fluent in Portuguese and worked as a reporter in the city’s favelas for RioOnWatch.org.
Cesar Toscano
Cesar is a freelance journalist and photographer who grew up on both sides of the Tijuana, Mexico – San Diego, U.S. border. He earned a B.S. in management science and economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Since graduating in 2008, Cesar became the Co-Founder and CEO of Slique, a technical consulting and web application startup. His photos have appeared in several reports filed by The Latin America News Dispatch.
Maria Trimble
Maria is from Ontario, Canada, and holds an Honors B.A. in International Development from the University of Guelph. After graduating, she spent six months working with the Coady International Institute in Huancayo, Peru, where she was responsible for the development, implementation and evaluation of an at home infant stimulation pilot program. Upon returning from Peru, Maria spent five months doing Andean health policy research for the Canadian Foundation of the Americas in Ottawa, Ontario. She holds an M.A. from New York University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, where her research focused on the politicized nature of Peru’s Vaso de Leche milk subsidy programming.
Hanna is a writer and filmmaker focused on indigenous issues in Latin America. She received her masters in Global Journalism at NYU, where she began reporting on the Colombian peace process. Her video and written work has been featured in Fusion, The Huffington Post, Latino USA, and the North American Congress of Latin America. She is currently developing a film about indigenous resistance in Cauca, Colombia.
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.