Faculty Voices

Alejandro de la Fuente, Director of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, brings us up to date on the situation in Cuba, looking at human rights, the economy and the staggering flow of Cubans from the island.

Ricardo Hausmann, the founder and Director of Harvard’s Growth Lab and the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School, talks about Latin America’s path to economic recovery. He examines a wide range of subjects, including the pandemic, global inflation, decarbonization and the impact of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine on Latin America.

Alisha Holland, Associate Professor in Harvard’s Government Department, looks at the upcoming Colombian elections on May 29.

Thomas B. F. Cummins is the new director of Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard-owned research institution in Washington, D.C. A Harvard History of Art and Architecture professor and an expert on pre-Columbian and Latin American colonial art, he discusses future plans for Dumbarton Oaks and a recent conference there on the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.

Américo Mendoza–Mori, an interdisciplinary scholar trained in literary, linguistic and cultural studies who teaches in Harvard’s Committee on Ethnicity, Migration and Rights, discusses his plans to promote Quechua, as well as Latinx studies at Harvard. He talks about two of his popular courses “Indigeneity and Latinidad” and a course that looks at Latinx representation in the media and arts. That’s something very familiar to him, he observes, since he was a cultural consultant on Dora and the Lost City of Gold.

Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, discusses how Latin America has been a protagonist in the development of human rights law, not just a victim of global politics. And as war wages in the Ukraine, she gives us her thoughts on how international law has virtually put an end to what she calls “aggressive interstate wars” in Latin America.

Abortion is no longer a crime in Colombia. Alicia Yamin, who heads up Harvard’s Global Health and Rights Project, discusses the hemispheric impact of the recent Colombian Constitutional Court decision to decriminalize abortion in that country.

Michael Starnbach, a professor of microbiology at Harvard Medical School and member of the DRCLAS Executive Committee, works on the very timely subject of infectious diseases. He has fostered medical collaborations with Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly with Cuba and Argentina.

Laura Alfaro, the Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, served as Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy in Costa Rica from 2010-2012. She reflects on the upcoming elections on February 6, with an unprecedented 25 candidates.

Steven Levitsky, director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the co-author of How Democracies Die, discusses what the election of leftist Gabriel Boric means for Chile and democracy.