Stone Center for Latin American Studies - Tulane University

🇧🇷 The Summer in Brazil program kicked off this week with 16 students from across the nation who will be in São Paulo for the next 4-6 weeks.

After orientation yesterday, they had a welcome dinner at Rascals in downtown São Paulo. These students are a great group; not a single rascal here!

Stay tuned for more summer updates!

Thank you to everyone who joined us at LASA2026 for the reception hosted in partnership with the American University of Paris. It was a wonderful evening, and we’re so glad to have shared it with all of you.

It's hard to believe graduation has already passed, and we're excited to finally share photos from our Latin American Studies Graduation Reception.

Congratulations again to our majors, minors, certificate, master's, and PhD students, as well as our amazing student workers, who have reached this milestone! We can't wait to see where your future endeavors take you.

Kudos to Valerie McGinley, Associate Director of Administration, for participating in the roundtable "Latin American Studies Centers in the US: Strategic Sites of Scholarship, Synergy and Solidarity" at LASA2026 in Paris.

Tulane sophomores Juliana Abeid (Political Science, International Relations, and Philosophy) and Sailor Whatley (Sociology and Latin American Studies on the pre-medical track) were part of the course LAST 4960-01 "Model OAS," which concluded with a trip to Washington, D.C., for the Model OAS simulation exercise.

They wrote about their experience for our website:

Model OAS: From the Classroom to International Negotiation The Roger Thayer Stone Center For Latin American Studies News

A special shoutout to PhD Candidate Isdanny Morales and Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication and core Stone Center faculty member, LZ Humphreys, for a successful session at LASA2026.

Dr. Morales co-organized the roundtable "Entangled Temporalities: Memory and Revolution in Contemporary Cuban Film and Digital Media," where she also presented alongside Dr. Humphreys.

Last month we celebrated the Stone Center Spring Awards Ceremony, where we recognized the best paper prizes, teaching prizes and LAGO awards.

Swipe through the images to see some snippets of such an amazing day.

✨ Isdanny Morales, William J. Griffith Award for Outstanding Teaching Assistant in Latin American Studies
✨ Watufani Poe, Maureen E. Shea Award for Best Undergraduate Teaching and Mentorship
✨ Clare Gucwa, Stone Center Award for Best Campus-Wide Latin Americanist Graduate Paper
✨ Avery Edwards, Stone Center Award for Best Campus-Wide Latin Americanist Undergraduate Paper
✨ Ava Gutierrez, Harvey & Victoria Bricker Award for the Best Undergraduate Paper in Social Science by a Latin American Studies Major
✨ Ana Luyanda (not pictured), Nora Lustig Award for the Best Graduate Paper in the Social Sciences by a Latin American Graduate Student
✨ Brenda Borges Aguiar (not pictured), Donald Robertson Award for the Best Graduate paper in Humanities by a Latin American Graduate Student
✨ Kaylin Jury, Guillermo Náñez-Falcón Prize for the Best Latin Americanist Student Paper Incorporating Primary Sources and Rare Materials Holdings of the Doris Z. Stone Latin American Library and Research Center
✨ Watufani Poe & Claudia Chávez-Argüelles, LAGO Outstanding Faculty Service Award
✨ Carolina Sánchez, LAGO Outstanding Staff Service Award
✨ Sebastián Amaya Palacios, LAGO Outstanding Graduate Student Service Award

A look back at Pachanga on April 29 ✨ Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate the end of the Academic Year and enjoy the evening with us. See you next semester!

Last March, we had the pleasure of hosting the 2026 Latinx Voices Author Series featuring Cristina Rivera Garza. The conversation, guided by our departing Zemurray-Stone Post-Doctoral Fellow Carolina Sánchez, was an in-depth reflection on memory, the role of archives, and the creative process behind shaping a narrative that honors the story at the heart of her Pulitzer Prize-winning work, “ Liliana’s Invincible Summer.” Swipe through the images and relive the incredible evening we shared!