Faculty Voices

Dr. Steffany Chamut, an instructor in oral health policy and epidemiology at the Harvard Dental School, talks about her work with a collaborative project between an interdisciplinary team of public health experts from Harvard and Mexico to jointly combat the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (including obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay) arising from increased consumption of sugary snacks and beverages in both countries. Originally from Mexico, Dr. Chamut believes an important factor is integrating oral health into early childhood education.

What’s going on in Peru? Harvard’s Government Professor Steven Levitsky, who is also the director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the co-author of How Democracies Die, tells us of the many challenges the country faces after Peruvian President Pedro Castillo was ousted from office last week after an attempted self-coup. His Vice-President Dina Boluarte became the seventh president in six years and the first female Peruvian president in history.

World Cup: Daren Graves, Lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Steve Ortega, an Associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, like to call themselves “the Sports Profs.” They discuss the World Cup and the role of Latin American teams.

Marcia Castro, Andelot Professor of Demography at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is chair of the Brazil Studies Program at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS). We're talking to her about the recent election in Brazil.

During Hispanic Heritage Month, Faculty Voices talked with Mayra Rivera Rivera, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies at Harvard University,. She discusses what it means to be Latinx with shared cultures and history of a colonial past.

After the October 2 first-round election, Brazilians will return to the polls October 30 to decide between left-leaning front-runner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva "Lula" and the right-wing incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro. Sidney Chalhoub, a Brazilian social historian, is David and Peggy Rockefeller Professor of History and of African and African American Studies, discusses the Brazilian elections, the challenges the country faces and the very threat to Brazilian democracy.

Gonzalo Giribet, the director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology and a Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, talks about the museum’s many collections, including a considerable quantity from Latin America. He also discusses his fieldwork and how Harvard undergraduates in his class will have the opportunity to explore biodiversity in Bocas del Toro, Panama, for the first time since the pandemic.

Doris Sommer, Ira Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies, tells us of an unusual collaboration with Pope Francis and of her new projects, including the Renaissance Project, which aims to make cultural initiatives a priority in cities around the world.

In the wake of Gustavo Petro’s August 7 inauguration, Alisha Holland, Associate Professor in Harvard’s Government Department who specializes in the Andean region, talks about the challenges facing the incoming left-leaning government. In a wide-ranging interview from Bogotá, she discusses his cabinet and such issues facing his government as land and police reform, security issues, health care and the environment.

Patricio del Real, Associate Professor of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, talks about his new book Constructing Latin America: Architecture, Politics and Race at the Museum of Modern Art. It’s the fascinating story of how race, gender, politics and even climate control formed the tapestry of Latin American modernist architecture and how it was projected through MOMA.