Are you a UC Davis Spanish Alumni? Connect with us on Linked In! www.linkedin.com/pub/uc-davis-alumni-spanish-portuguese/a1/285/b7b/
Ana Ruiz Alonso Bartol
Dissertation title: Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback in Beginner Spanish University Courses: A Mixed-Methods Roadmap to Support Lexicogrammatical Awareness and Writing Experiences
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sanchez-Gutierrez
Year of Graduation: 2026
Alumni Placement: University of Virginia, Lecturer
Sandra Stephanie Pulido
Dissertation title: Entre la herida y el análisis: mediación, reinscripción y subjetividad en Seguir viviendo
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Co-Chairs, Robert Irwin and Maceo Montoya
Year of Graduation: 2026
Alumni Placement:Continuing as a Spanish Teacher at Maybeck High School in Berkeley, California.
Ana Ortega Perez
Dissertation title: La enseñanza de la Competencia Comunicativa Intercultural en clase de español como lengua extranjera a través de lecturas graduadas
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sanchez-Gutierrez
Year of Graduation: 2026
Alumni Placement: University of North Carolina, Charlotte, lecturer
Jonathan Jeremias Peralta Gutierrez
Dissertation title: Afectos y políticas evangélicas pentecostales en la producción cultural de Argentina, Chile y Brasil (1990- 2020)
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Ana Peluffo
Year of Graduation: 2025
Evelyn Selena Gamez
Dissertation title: (Re)framing the Listening Subject as a Bilingual Speaker in the Latino Community
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Agustina Carando
Year of Graduation: 2025
Alumni Placement: Instructor of Spanish at Cypress Community College
Maria Jose Gutierrez Jimenez
Dissertation title: Storying (E)motion: Migrant culture and the Affective Politics of Migration
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert M. Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2024
Alumni Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish at Emory University-Oxford College
Faith Blackhurst
Dissertation title: The Nourishing Mother in Contemporary Mexican and Brazilian Narrative
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Patrick Newcomb
Year of Graduation: 2024
Alumni Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
Maria Claudia Huerta Vera
Dissertation title: La memoria en el cine documental peruano: representaciones del conflicto armado interno.
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2024
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor of Spanish at Idaho State University
Paloma Fernandez-Mira
Dissertation title: The influence of topics on lexical diversity and subject pronoun expression: A corpus-based study of L2 Spanish Writing.
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sanchez-Gutierrez
Year of Graduation: 2024
Alumni Placement: Upper School Spanish teacher at Nueva School, San Mateo, CA
Lillian Jones
Dissertation title: The Task is in the Text: Texting and Second Language Oral Fluency
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2024
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor of Teaching and Director of the Language Program in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Irvin.
Shelley Dykstra
Dissertation title: Writing Anxiety and Enjoyment in University Spanish as a Second and Heritage Language Learners
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Agustina Carando
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Education Programs Assistant/Consultant; Language Policy and Leadership Office, Multilingual Support Division. California Department of Education
Shelley is currently a Spanish instructor at Moorpark College in Ventura, CA.
Jessica Rodrigues Poletti
Dissertation title: Explorando la mirada lesbica en el cine espanol: Del male gaze y la (in)visibilidad a la interseccionalidad
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Diana Aramburu
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Assistant Teaching Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Jessica is currently the Barcelona Senior Program Coordinator and the University of Valencia, Spain
Morgan Frances Smith
Dissertation title: Unbecoming-of-Age Tales: the niña fatal and the De(con)struction of the Paterfamilias in Latin
America and Spain
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Diana Aramburu
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Miami University, OH
Georgina Oller Bosch
Dissertation title: Hacia el Cuarto Cine: el documentalismo contramonumental en España y Latinoamérica
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Co-Chairs, Cristina Martinez-Carazo and Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2023
Gina is currently teaching at a La Salle Catalunya, a Lasallian high school, as a Spanish teacher.
Lani Guadalupe Lopez Bastidas
Dissertation title: Vocabulary use and classroom practices through teacher talk: a comparative and longitudinal study
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia H. Sanchez-Gutierrez
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Adjunct Spanish Professor at Solano Community College
Daniel Coral
Dissertation title: Cartografías de la memoria: El cine colombiano contemporáneo ante la transición
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN
César Enrique Hoyos Alvarez
Dissertation title: Students’ Emotions over Monoglossic Expectations: Affective Discovery and Critical Interventions in L2 & Heritage Language Classrooms
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor of Instruction at Northwestern University
Diego Alins Breda
Dissertation title: Implementing a Reading Program in Beginner Spanish L2 University Courses: Graded Readers, Vocabulary Learning, and Students and Instructors’ Perspectives
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor of Instruction, Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at the University of Texas, Dallas
Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana
Dissertation title: The Diaspora of US Childhood Arrival Immigrants: Illegalization, Criminalization, and Deportation of US Americans by the Country They Call Home
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert M. Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2023
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor in Chicanx Studies, Department of Black and Latino Studies at CUNY-Baruch,
Anna Rodas
Dissertation title: Martyrdom and the Poet: Sacrificial Imagery in Central America
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Ana Peluffo
Year of Graduation: 2022
Leonardo de Oliveira Silva
Dissertation title: Reshaping Forms: The Literature of The War of the Triple Alliance
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Leopoldo Bernucci and Robert Newcomb
Year of Graduation: 2022
Alba Marce Garcia
Dissertation title: Prostituting the Global City: The Case of Twenty-First Century Barcelona
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Diana Aramburu and Robert Newcomb
Year of Graduation: 2022
Daniela Alejandra Cerbino
Alumni Placement: Assistant Professor, Cal Poly Humboldt
Dissertation title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cecilia Colombi
Year of Graduation: 2022
Victor Nieto Cervantes
Dissertation title: Protean Pythagoras: Social Critique in El Dialogo de las Transformaciones and El Siglo Pitagorico
Chair of Dissertation Committee: John Slater
Year of Graduation: 2022
Miguel Rojo Polo
Alumni Placement- Lecturer: Florida Gulf Coast University
Dissertation Title: La producción cultural del inmigrante y su creación de un nuevo sujeto ideal nacional
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cristina Martinez-Carazo
Year of Graduation: 2021
Paula Plastic Gonzalez
Alumni Placement- research at University of Adelaide, Australia
Dissertation Title: Magna Margarita: Margarita de Austria (1584-1611), relaciones de sucesos y la reginalidad moderna
Chair of Dissertation Committee: John Slater and Cristina Martinez-Carazo
Year of Graduation: 2021
Emily Frankel
Alumni Placement: Santa Clara University, Adjunct Lecturer, Modern Languages and Literatures
Dissertation Title: Subjectivities in Transit: Narratives of Chilean Women Militants in the Aftermath of Pinochet's Regime
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2021
Carmen Valdivia-Ponce
Alumni Placement: Macalester College, Visiting Assistant Professor;
Lafayette College, Assistant Professor in Department of Languages and Literary Studies
Dissertation Title: Playing Indian and Indigeneity: Fraught Performances and Decolonial Visions in the Peruvian Postconflict
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2021
Paul Kidhardt
Dissertation Title: Spanish heritage speaker comprehension and production of the obligatory subjunctive
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Agustina Carando
Year of Graduation: 2021
Gustavo Segura Chavez
Alumni Placement: Spelman College, Lecturer
Dissertation Title: Reconstitución de escena: Masacres del siglo XX chileno en la memoria cultural
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2021
Claire Lozano
Alumni Placement: Macalester College, Visiting Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Prosodically driven continuity lenition: A phonological account of spirantization in Colombian heritage Spanish
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Travis Bradley
Year of Graduation: 2021
Alejandro Rossi Brotfeld
Alumni Placement: Colegio San Anselmo, Literature and Language Instructor
Dissertation Title: ¿Un otro Chile? Una lectura destituyente para el presente
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2021
Arelis Rivero-Cabrera
Alumni Placement: Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian Regional Government), España (Spain), Archivist and Records Manager
Dissertation Title: Modelando al "pionero": educación y producción cultural para la infancia en Cuba socialista durante los 70 y 80
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2020
Sergio Diaz-Luna
Alumni Placement: Longwood University, Lecturer of Spanish
University of Utah, Associate Instructor, World Languages and Cultures
Dissertation Title: Impulsos críticos: escritos entre políticas y poéticas en Ricardo Piglia, Alan Pauls y Jorge Luis Borges
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Ana Peluffo
Year of Graduation: 2020
Pablo Robles Garcia
Alumni Placement: University of Toronto, Assistant Professor, Department of Language Studies
Dissertation Title: ¿Cuántas Palabras Conocen los Aprendientes de Español como Lengua Extranjera? Competencia Léxica y Oportunidades de Aprendizaje Léxico en el Aula de ELE
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sanchez-Gutierrez
Year of Graduation: 2020
Kathleen Guerra
Alumni Placement: Denver University, Teaching Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Contact-induced Request Softening in Northern Andean Spanish: Linguistic Ideologies in Perception and Practice
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Claudia Sanchez-Gutierrez
Year of Graduation: 2020
Danae Valenzuela
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title: Migración sur-sur: narrativas y representaciones de nuevos encuentros latinoamericanos con migraciones haitianas
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2020
Melissa Patino-Vega
Alumni Placement: Portland State University, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Chicano Latino Studies
Dissertation Title: Developing Academic Biliteracy among Heritage Learners of Spanish
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cecilia Colombi
Year of Graduation: 2019
Maria Fernanda Diaz Basteris
Alumni Placement: Cornell College, Mr. Vernon, Iowa, Visiting Professor
Dissertation Title: Narrativa grafica puertorriquena: arte independiente, memoria historica y pedagogia
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2019
Rebeca Rubio
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title: Escenarios Barrocos Vigilados Cinco Comedias Representadas en la Dictadura Franquista
Chair of Dissertation Committee: John Slater
Year of Graduation: 2019
Brooke Kipling
MA
Alumni Placement: Pursuing PhD in Spanish UC Davis
Year of Graduation: 2019
Evelyn Gamez
MA
Alumni Placement: Pursuing PhD in Spanish UC Davis
Year of Graduation: 2019
Elisa Magallanes
MA
Year of Graduation: 2019
Cristina Vazquez
MA
Year of Graduation: 2019
Cesar Hoyos Alvarez
MA
Alumni Placement: Pursuing PhD in Spanish UC Davis
Year of Graduation: 2019
Aaron Yamada
Alumni Placement: Creighton University, Assistant Professor of Spanish and French
Aaron is currently an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Louisiana State University, World Language Department.
Dissertation Title: The acquisition of negative concord in L2 Spanish
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2019
Silvia Agunaga Echeverria
Alumni Placement: Denison University; University of Navarra, Spain, Visiting Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Building Fluency: A Contrastive Analysis of Formulaic Speech in Students of Spanish as a Second Language and Native Speakers
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2018
Miguel Zepeda Torres
Alumni Placement: Bunker Hill Community College Boston, Associate Professor
Dissertation Title: Debuccalization of /s/ and Historic /f/ Variation in Traditional New Mexican Spanish: an Optimality Theory Approach
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake & Travis Bradley
Year of Graduation: 2018
Lina Reznicek-Parrado
Alumni Placement: Denver University, Teaching Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Peer-to-peer Tutoring in Spanish as a Heritage Language Development: A Qualitative Study of Student Literacy Practices
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cecilia Colombi
Year of Graduation: 2018
Juan Hernando Vazquez
Alumni Placement: American School in Barcelona, Spain
Dissertation Title: Re-Making Memory: Mass Graves, Perpetrators, and Concentration Camps in the Contemporary Spanish Theatre (1990-2014)
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cristina Martinez-Carazo and Marta Altisent
Year of Graduation: 2018
Elena Atanasiu
Alumni Placement: Community College Professor, Truckee Meadows Community College
Dissertation Title: Sensory Politics in Nineteenth Century Argentina
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Ana Peluffo
Year of Graduation: 2018
David Tenorio
Alumni Placement: University of Pittsburgh, Assistant Professor, Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures
Dissertation Title: Sex After The Revolution: Queer Utopias, Sexual Politics and the Poetics of Hope in Contemporary Cuban and Mexican Cultural Production
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Emilio Bejel and Robert Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2018
Ana Varela Tafur
Alumni Placement: Tilden Preparatory School, Albany CA, Teaching Spanish
Dissertation Title: Intrusos impertinentes: Civilizadores, caucheros y regatones en la literatura del boom del caucho
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Leopoldo Bernucci
Year of Graduation: 2018
Melissa Corbett
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2018
Juan Miranda
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title: Aesthetic Representations and Theatricalization of Fotoball in New Contemporary Argentine Cinema
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2018
Daniela Suarez
Alumni Placement: California State University Long Beach, Professor in Chicano and Latino Studies
Dissertation Title: The United States in the Latin American Essay of the 20th Century: Henriquez Urena, Zea and Monsivais
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Linda Egan
Year of Graduation: 2018
Suzy Hernandez
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2018
Sergio Giro
Alumni Placement: UC Davis Law
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2018
Lani Lopez Bastidas
Alumni Placement:
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2018
Fernanda Righi
Alumni Placement: Roger Williams University, Providence, RI, Lecturer for Foreign Languages
Dissertation Title: Who is the Worker? Spaces, Bodies, and Gender in Narratives about Workers in Argentina and Brazil
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Leopoldo Bernucci and Robert Newcomb
Year of Graduation: 2018
Diego Valdecantos-Monteagudo
Alumni Placement: University of Oklahoma, Lecturer
Dissertation Title: "El osculo mas puro": Eros y Religion en la Lirica de la Antigua, Sor Marcela de San Felix y Sor Violante del Cielo
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Adrienne Martin
Year of Graduation: 2018
Chelsea Escalante
Alumni Placement: University of Wyoming, Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: The acquistion of a sociolinguistic variable while volunteering abroad: s-weakening among L2 and hertitage speakers in coastal Ecuador
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Travis Bradley and Robert Bayley
Year of Graduation: 2018
Kim Morris
Alumni Placement: University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, Assistant Professor, Global Cultures and Language
Dissertation Title: Learning by Doing: The Affordances of Task-Based Pragmatics Instruction for Beginning L2 Spanish Learners Studying Abroad
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2017
Jose-Ramon Ortigas
Alumni Placement: Santa Clara University, Assistant Professor of Spanish Studies
Dissertation Title: Transatlantic Denunciations: Spanish and Mexican novelas negras Contest Neoliberalism
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Linda Egan, Cristina Martinez-Carazo
Year of Graduation: 2017
Angel Ruiz Blanco
Alumni Placement: Boston College, Visiting Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: El Marco Teórico Y Práctico De La Enseñanza Del Español Jurídico
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2017
Rebecca Pozzi (Conely)
Alumni Placement: CSU Monterey, Assistant Professor School of World Languages and Cultures
Dissertation Title: The Acquisition of Regional Features during a Semester Abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Cecilia Colombi
Year of Graduation: 2017
Miguel Garcia
Alumni Placement: Fordham University, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures
Dissertation Title: Redes modernizantes: ciencia y tecnología en la literatura y el cine mexicanos (1917-1968)
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2017
Theresa Souza e Silva Bachmann
Alumni Placement: Federal University of Pernambuco, UFPE, Brazil, Post Doc
Dissertation Title: Poéticas da dissidência entre México e Brasil: diálogos entre memória e arte de tempos de repressão
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Leopoldo Bernucci
Year of Graduation: 2017
Eric Jensen
Alumni Placement: Saint Francis High School, Spanish teacher
Dissertation Title: What's in a Phrase: The Acquisition and Comprehension of Collocations in an Advanced Spanish Classroom
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2017
Anny Proctor
Alumni Placement: Eastern Guilford High School, North Carolina, Spanish teacher
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2017
Alessandra (Dvorak) Mpandenyama
Alumni Placement: Lick-Wilmerding High School, San Francisco, Spanish teacher
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: MA
Year of Graduation: 2017
Tracy Quan
Alumni Placement: Colby College, then University of Delaware, then University of Colorado, Boulder, Visiting Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Becoming Fluent Abroad: Examining the Intersections of Oral Fluency, Formulaic Language, and Learner Investment in Study Abroad
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2016
Jonathan Alcantar
Alumni Placement: University of Northern Colorado, Assistant Professor Mexican-American Studies and Spanish
Dissertation Title:
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Irwin
Year of Graduation: 2016
Isabel Baboun Garib
Alumni Placement: Escuela de Teatro de la Universidad Catolica de Chile, Teaching
Dissertation Title: Subjetividades Afectivas en el Nuevo Teatro Chileno: Cristian Plana, Guillermo Calderon y Manuela Infante
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Ana Peluffo
Year of Graduation: 2016
Gabriel Guillen
Alumni Placement: Monterey Institute of International Studies (Monterey, CA)
Dissertation Title: Expanding the language classroom: linguistic gains and learning opportunities through e-tandems and social networks
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2015
Tania Lizarazo
Alumni Placement: University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Catonsville, MD), Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication and the Global Studies Program
Dissertation Title: What Does It Mean to Survive Violence in Colombia?: Local Agencies and Transnational Alliances
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Michael Lazzara
Year of Graduation: 2015
David Beard
Alumni Placement: Miami University of Ohio; University of Maryland, Baltimore, Assistant Professor
Dissertation Title: Taking a Closer Look at English-Spanish Cognates in Word Recognition among Second Language Learners and Bilinguals: Cognate Categorization and Individual Differences in Recognition
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2015
Annalisa Teixeira
Alumni Placement: UC Davis Student Academic Success Center
Dissertation Title: The Role of Keyboarding in the Development and Retention of L2 Spanish Vocabulary
Chair of Dissertation Committee: Robert Blake
Year of Graduation: 2015