Meet the 2026–27 DRCLAS Graduate Student Associates

Darien is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research explores the history of Black education in the British West Indies, particularly in Guyana, where she grew up. She examines how African- Guyanese educational practices, especially those embedded in free villages (i.e. lands first purchased by formerly enslaved people upon emancipation) both overlapped with and challenged missionary-led schooling during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing on archival materials and oral histories, Darien recovers the experiences and perspectives of African- Guyanese teachers and students often absent from the colonial record. She also treats the built environments where schooling occurred, and their relationship to the surrounding landscape, as carriers of educational histories that written sources alone cannot tell. Before coming to Harvard, she taught first grade in Harlem, New York, where she developed writing curricula centered on Black resistance movements. She holds a B.A. in Sociology and an M.A. in Teaching from the University of Chicago.

Félix is a doctoral candidate in Romance Languages and Literatures. His research focuses on critical theory and Latin American literature through the lenses of Cultural Memory Studies, Gender Studies, Migration and Border Studies, and Reading Studies. His dissertation, “The Worth of the Worthless: The Question of Value in Contemporary Latin American Culture,” examines how hermeneutic practices shape and define the cultural objects that different communities identify as meaningful and that, in turn, help shape their identities. His work has been published in Hispanic Review, Romance Quarterly, Chasqui, among other journals.

Ben is a 5th year PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature. With a background in Classics and English, he now mostly focuses on the literatures and cultures of the English-, French-, and Creole-speaking Caribbean and its diaspora. His doctoral research reveals the mutually complicating relationship between Caribbean theories of time and the idea of antiquity. He has published work on the classicisms of writers such as Derek Walcott and Claude McKay as well as on the politics of multilingualism in ancient Babylon. When not reading, teaching, or writing, Ben enjoys rowing on the Charles, watching Westerns, and cooking elaborate meals.

Tomás is a candidate in the History Department at Harvard University. His research interests comprise vernacular understandings of race, everyday processes of knowledge transmission, and popular articulations of post-racial politics. His dissertation explores how formerly enslaved enslavers and afrodescendant slave owners conceptualized race and freedom in the nineteenth-century Brazilian Empire. Tomás holds a BA in History from Universidad de los Andes and an MA in History from University College London.

Gustavonis a doctoral student at Harvard University in the Department of African and African American Studies with a primary field in History. He also worked as a history teacher for teenagers and adults. His research interests lie at the intersection of Latin American History and African Diaspora History. His current work traces practices of illegal enslavement in Brazil and Angola, and the formation of Atlantic communities of survivors of the Middle Passage. Additionally, his research also explores Afro-Indigenous interactions in 19th-century Brazil. Gustavo holds a master's degree in Social History from the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and a bachelor's degree with a teaching license in History from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN).

Aaron is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government. His research examines democratic backsliding, political elites, and the comparative politics of Latin America with a focus on Brazil and Peru. His dissertation examines why democracies break down under populist leaders. He was a 2024 Fulbright-Hays scholar and earned his AB from Harvard University as well as an MPhil in Latin American studies from the University of Oxford.