Meet the 2026–2027 DRCLAS Visiting Scholars and Fellows

Each year, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies brings leading scholars and practitioners from across the Americas to Harvard to pursue independent research, collaborate with faculty and students, and contribute to our intellectual community. For the 2026–2027 academic year, DRCLAS is proud to welcome a dynamic cohort whose work spans public health, literature, history, Latinx and Indigenous studies, and the visual arts. This year’s cohort also includes the inaugural Ivorra Visiting Scholar, part of a new fellowship supporting early-career researchers from Latin America and the Caribbean whose work engages questions of democracy, governance, and human rights.

From the dynamics of institutional change under authoritarianism to the lived realities of mental and childhood health, as well as the histories of knowledge exchange and revolutionary struggle, this cohort reflects both the diversity of the region and the depth of scholarship shaping its future. Throughout the year, these scholars will contribute to classroom discussions, collaborative research, and public programming, helping to foster meaningful cross-border dialogue.

Gabriela Buccini

2026–2027 Lemann Visiting Scholar. In residence: Fall 2026

Gabriela Buccini, PhD, M.Sc., IBCLC, is an Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Health at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Dr. Buccini’s research focuses on maternal and child health and nutrition, with an emphasis on breastfeeding, infant feeding, food insecurity, and early childhood development inequities. Trained in epidemiology, public health nutrition, and implementation science, she applies mixed-methods approaches grounded in Complex Adaptive Systems, the Socioecological Model, and the Nurturing Care Framework. Her work spans global and U.S. contexts, evaluating interventions in low-income settings to inform scalable, equity-driven solutions.

At DRCLAS, Dr. Buccini will analyze a mixed-methods evaluation of the implementation of Brazil’s National Policy for Comprehensive Child Health Care (Política Nacional de Atenção Integral à Saúde da Criança). Using the RE-AIM framework, this project examines the implementation of a national early childhood policy from 2015 to 2025 designed to strengthen nurturing care from pregnancy through age nine. During her residency, she will analyze a decade-long dataset, produce peer-reviewed publications, and foster collaborations with Harvard faculty and regional fellows.

Dr. Buccini completed postdoctoral training in Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health (2017–2020). She earned her PhD (2017) and M.Sc. (2012) in Public Health Nutrition from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. In Brazil, she developed the Early Childhood Friendly Municipal Index and evaluated Criança Feliz, one of the world’s largest parenting and early childhood home visiting programs. Her research advances implementation science approaches to reduce inequities in early childhood health, nutrition, and development.

Ignacio Chuecas Saldías

2026-2027 Luksic Visiting Scholar. In residence: Fall 2026 and Spring 2027

Ignacio Chuecas Saldías is a Professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Communications and a member of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Humanities at Universidad Finis Terrae in Santiago, Chile. He earned a PhD in Old Testament Studies from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and a PhD in History from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

His research focuses on colonial and frontier phenomena during the early modern period in the Spanish Empire. He has specialized in the Portuguese diaspora in the territories of the Spanish Crown, particularly in New Christian, converso, and Judaizing identities. His work includes aspects of social history—such as family networks and agency—as well as material culture, including the circulation of knowledge and objects within the New Christian diaspora.

At DRCLAS, he will explore the clandestine reception of Sephardic literature among Judaizers in colonial Spanish America (16th–17th centuries). He is currently the principal investigator of the projects: Fondecyt Regular No. 1241967, “Conversos, familia e imperio: Agencia conversa en contexto imperial (siglos XVI–XVII)” (2024–2028), and “Praying to the God of Israel according to the Portuguese Tradition (16th–18th centuries),” Cátedra de Estudos Sefarditas “Alberto Benveniste,” Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa.

Forrest Hylton

2026–2027 Santo Domingo Visiting Scholar. In residence: Fall 2026

Forrest Hylton’s research focuses on the Wayúu in the Colombian-Venezuelan Caribbean in the 18th century and the Aymara in the Bolivian Andes in the 19th century.

At DRCLAS, he will be completing a manuscript on state formation, property rights and law, Indigenous projects of self-government, and collective land tenure, entitled Ghosts of “Race War”: Aymara Communities, the Federal War of 1899, and the “Regeneration of Bolivia.”

Hylton earned his PhD in Latin American History from New York University. He has taught at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Harvard University, Northwestern University, the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Medellín), and, most recently, the Universidade Federal da Bahia in Salvador, Brazil. He has held fellowships at New York University, Harvard University, and Linnaeus University (Sweden).

His scholarly essays have been published in Atlantic Studies, Mundos do Trabalho, Dialectical Anthropology, South Atlantic Quarterly, and Tinkazos, as well as in various edited volumes. He is the author of Evil Hour in Colombia (Verso, 2006) and co-author of Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics (Verso, 2007). He has also published on U.S.–Latin American relations.

He is co-producer of the 2014 documentary film Espíritus guerreros: Las resistencias de los Wayúu en el siglo XVIII. He writes about Latin American history, politics, and U.S. empire for the London Review of Books and is a frequent guest on KPFA Radio’s Behind the News and Voces ancestrales.

Lauro Miranda Demenech

2026–2027 Cisneros Visiting Scholar. In residence: Spring 2027

Lauro Miranda Demenech is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG), Brazil, where he serves as Head of the Graduate Program in Psychology. His research focuses on the social determinants of mental health, with particular attention to how social, economic, and institutional contexts shape university students’ mental health. He coordinates the research consortium Health and Wellness of Undergraduate Students (SABES-Grad), one of the largest and longest-running studies on student mental health in Brazil.

At DRCLAS, Demenech’s project seeks to address the mental health crisis in higher education in Brazil. His work focuses on developing innovative strategies to overcome resource constraints in mental health care delivery and reduce the growing burden of mental health problems among university students. In collaboration with the Mental Health for All Lab at Harvard Medical School, Demenech aims to design, implement, and evaluate an intervention based on task-sharing models of care delivered by non-specialist community resources.

Demenech holds a BA in Psychology, an MSc in Public Health, and a PhD in Health Sciences. He is a member of the Brazilian National Mental Health Network (RENASAM). In his recent article, “Student mental health is in crisis—here’s how to help” (Nature, 2026), he highlights the global mental health crisis in universities and calls for coordinated action from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. His work is driven by a commitment to understanding and addressing mental health inequalities in higher education.

Américo Mendoza-Mori

2026–2027 Custer Visiting Scholar. In residence: Spring 2027

Américo Mendoza-Mori (Ica, Perú) is an Assistant Professor of Romance Languages at St. Olaf College. His work bridges literary, sociolinguistic, and cultural studies, with a focus on Latin America, U.S. Latinidad, and Indigeneity. His recent book Cusco post Inca: cómo se vive, imagina y construye cultura en una ciudad andina contemporánea (2026) examines cultural production, policy, and citizenship in the historic Inka capital.

Mendoza-Mori’s research at DRCLAS examines the global presence and impact of Quechua, an Indigenous language family with about 10 million speakers, often framed as a heritage of the past, in a transnational context that connects the Andes with migrant communities in the United States and Europe. It traces how youth creators, educators, and cultural collectives organize and lead public initiatives to advance linguistic empowerment and strengthen Indigenous identities.

He holds a BA from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and a PhD from the University of Miami. His research has been published in venues such as PMLA, the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, and The Cambridge Handbook of Multilingual Education. His work has been presented at the United Nations and featured by the Library of Congress, The New York Times, BBC, NPR, and TEDx. Mendoza-Mori has received teaching awards from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania and has also been recognized by the City of Boston and the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He has served as a cultural consultant for film and media, including Paramount’s Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019).

Mirzam Pérez

2026–2027 Central America Visiting Scholar. In residence: Spring 2027

Mirzam Pérez (she/ella) is an artist-scholar who explores questions of place and belonging through fabric and paint. As Professor of Spanish at Grinnell College, her research bridges seventeenth-century theater, visual culture, and digital humanities with an active contemporary studio practice in painting and sculpture. She is the author of The Comedia of Virginity: Mary and the Politics of Seventeenth-Century Spanish Theater (Baylor University Press, 2012), and numerous articles on theater, festival culture, and pedagogy.

Pérez’s project at DRCLAS examines the visual legacy of corporate imperialism through the United Fruit Company Photograph Collection at the Baker Library at Harvard. Drawing on visual culture studies, critical archival theory, and her own studio practice, she analyzes how corporate photography constructed narratives of labor, land, and modernization that obscured exploitative conditions in Latin America and the Caribbean. This research informs both a forthcoming body of artwork and an undergraduate seminar in which students engage in archival analysis and creative responses to histories of corporate image-making.

Pérez is completing a Master of Fine Arts from Maharishi International University (expected January 2027) and holds a PhD from Tulane University (2009). Her research has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. She exhibits nationally and internationally.

Emilia Simison

2026–2027 Ivorra–ASISA–IAP Visiting Scholar. In residence: Spring 2027

Emilia Simison is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Latin American Politics at Queen Mary University of London. Her research focuses on the comparative political economy of policymaking and policy change. She uses qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze how political institutions across regime types shape the extent to which citizens and interest groups influence policymaking and policy outputs. She is the co-author of Lawmaking under Authoritarianism: Factions, Institutions, and Outcomes Across Dictatorships (Cambridge University Press, 2026) and Cómo gobernó la dictadura: Facciones, instituciones y políticas en el Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (1976–1983) (Edhasa, 2026), and the author of Policy in Transition: How Regime Change Affects Policymaking (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

As the inaugural Ivorra–ASISA–IAP Visiting Scholar at DRCLAS, Emilia Simison will be working on her collaborative project Democracy, Participation, and Public Goods in Latin America. Focusing on the experience of upgrading and integration of informal settlements in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the project studies the mechanisms driving democratic responsiveness, the relationship between policy responsiveness and support for democracy, and whether and how unmet expectations of quality-of-life improvements contribute to democratic erosion.

She holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an MA from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (UTDT), and a BA from the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), all in Political Science. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research (CIPR) at Tulane University and a PhD fellow at CONICET at the Gino Germani Research Institute. She co-organizes the Authoritarian Political Systems Group.

Paola Cortes-Rocca

2026–2027 de Fortabat Visiting Scholar. In residence: Spring 2027

Paola Cortes-Rocca is a cultural critic specializing in the intersections of writing and visuality in Latin America. She is Professor at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes and the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and a Researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). Her book La letra en el ojo: Un ensayo entre imágenes y escrituras (Artexarte, 2024) explores questions of archive, materiality, and performance in the expanded field of contemporary Argentine aesthetics.

At DRCLAS, she will develop a project examining avant-garde practices in 1960s and 1970s Argentina through the figure of Oscar Masotta. Titled Radical Imagination, the project argues that his trajectory bridges disciplines, practices, and geographies, fostering transnational exchanges between Latin America and Europe. It takes Masotta as a key figure through which to revisit the intersections of aesthetics and politics, theory and practice, and art and life.

Cortes-Rocca received her PhD from Princeton University and taught at San Francisco State University, where she chaired the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. She has held fellowships at Princeton and the University of Southern California (USC). She authored El tiempo de la máquina (Colihue, 2011) and essays on photography and literature. She is a translator of Boris Groys, Jill Casid, Jonathan Crary, and Timothy Morton, among others, and a curator of Osvaldo Lamborghini’s visual work. She is part of the feminist collective Ni Una Menos. Cortes-Rocca will serve as Vice President of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) beginning in June 2026 and as President the following year.