Dora María Téllez

Fall 2024 Cisneros Visiting Fellow;
Spring 2025 Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies
Dora Maria Tellez

Dora María Téllez is a Nicaraguan historian, politician, and social rights activist.  

During Nicaragua´s revolutionary goverment (1979-1990), she served as representative and vice president of the Council of State and as Minister of Health. In 2021, she was imprisoned for 20 months and held in isolation for denouncing the human rights violations of the goverment.  

She is the author of books and academic publications about Nicaraguan economic and social history, the challenges of democracy, social movements, exclusion of indigenous and other minoritized communities, and the evolution of the Nicaraguan political system.  

Téllez is member of Nicaraguan Academy of Geography and History and the Guatemalan Academy of Geography and History. She has also received two honorary doctorates from the University of Helsinki (2011) and from the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University (2022).   

Currently, she is Visiting Professor, Richard E. Greenleaf Distinguished Chair in Latin American Studies. Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana.