Our Team

Michele Reid-Vazquez is the Institute Project Director. She is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh where she specializes in the history of the African Diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin America, and Afro-Latinx communities in the U.S.

Shawn Alfonso Wells is the the Institute Project Manager. She is a Global Experiences Specialist at the University of Pittsburgh and an anthropologist with expertise on the African diaspora in Latin America, particularly the intersections of sex, race, class, and culture in Cuba.

Israel Herndon is the Institute Project Coordinator. She is a senior doublemajoring in Africana Studies and History at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include Afro-Caribbean religions, Black women’s history in the Americas, and antebellum African American midwifery practices.

Angel Christou is the Project Assistant. She is a senior double majoring in Africana Studies and Spanish at the University of Pittsburgh. Her interests include Black female holistic health traditions, spiritual practices in the African diaspora, Black and Latine community relationships, and Afro-latinidad.

George Reid Andrews is a Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and a Project Scholar for the Institute. He is a specialist of Black history in Latin America, with an emphasis on Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

Eddie Bonilla is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Latinx Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and a Project Scholar for the Institute. His research examines the theories and practice of Latina/o, African American, and Asian American Communists during the 1970s and 1980s.

Sherwin Bryant is an Associate Professor of African American Studies and History at Northwestern University and a Project Scholar for the Institute. He is an historian of colonial Afro-Latin America and the Atlantic/Pacific Worlds, with an emphasis upon Black life in the Kingdoms of New Granada and Quito (now modern Colombia and Ecuador).

Kia Lilly Caldwell is the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Diversity, a Professor of African and African-American Studies, and the Dean’s Distinguished Professorial Scholar in Arts & Sciences at the Washington University in St. Louis. As a Project Scholar for the Institut, her expertise focuses on race, gender, Black feminism, health policy and HIV/AIDS in Brazil and the U.S.

Gina Garcia is an Associate Professor of Educational Foundations, Organizations, and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh and a Project Scholar for the Institute. Her research centers on issues of equity and justice in higher education with an emphasis on understanding how Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) embrace and enact an organizational identity for serving minoritized populations.

Keila Grinberg is a Professor of History and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and a Project Scholar for the Institute. Her expertise focuses on the history of slavery in Brazil.

Jennifer Jones is an Associate Professor of Sociology & Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She examines the social construction of race through the lens of immigration, the growing multiracial population, and shifting social relations between and within racial groups, with an emphasis on Afro-Mexicans in the U.S. South.

Martha Mantilla is the Librarian for Latin American Studies Collection and the Department of Area Studies for the University of Pittsburgh Library System and a Project Scholar for the Institute. Her expertise addresses the university’s resources in Afro-Latin American studies in Afro-Latinx and Latinx holdings.

Nancy Raquel Mirabal is an Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland at College Park. She is a specialist in Latinx history, with an emphasis on Afro-Cuban migration to the U.S.

Anju Reejhsinghani is the Assistant Vice Provost for Strategic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Administration at the University of Wisconsin and a Project Scholar for the Institute. Her research intersects with Latin American, Latinx, African American, and Asian American studies and with race, gender and transnational sport.