People

Program Administration

Erika Robb Larkins
Director
Office: AL-626
Phone: (619) 594-5028
Email: [email protected]

Dr. Erika Robb Larkins is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Behner Stiefel Chair of Brazilian Studies, and Director of the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University. She received her doctorate in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and also holds a M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago. Larkins’ research and teaching focuses on violence and inequality in urban settings. Her first book, The Spectacular Favela: Violence in Modern Brazil (U California Press 2015), explores the political economy of spectacular violence in one of Rio’s most famous favelas. Her second book, The Sensation of Security: Private Guards and the Social Order in Brazil, is forthcoming from Cornell University Press. She has also published on issues of race, gender, and politics in Brazil, with recent articles appearing in American Ethnologist, City and Society, and the Journal for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, and in public outlets including El País and Estadão (O Estado de São Paulo).

Also a writer of fiction, Larkins is a Pushcart nominee, and her 2021 short story, “Working for Nico” won an award from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology in the creative ethnographic prose category. Her next creative project is a book-length work of ethnographic fiction co-authored with one of Rio’s most illustrious former drug traffickers (now incarcerated).

Larkins’ is currently working on a new National Science Foundation funded research project on the intersection of extreme heat, environmental racism, and inequality in Rio de Janeiro. She was recently awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to co-teach the second iteration of the NEH Summer Institute, “Race, Modernity and Urban Spaces in Brazil” for higher education faculty in 2022.

Kristal Bivona
Assistant Director
Office: AL-626
Phone: (619) 594-4771
Email: [email protected]

Dr. Kristal Bivona is the assistant director of the Center for Brazilian Studies and teaches courses on Brazilian Cultural Studies for the College of Arts and Letters. She holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Los Angeles, an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College, and received a B.A. in English with a Spanish minor from SDSU as a community college transfer student. Her current book project investigates how filmmakers from Brazil and the Southern Cone grapple with transitional justice, victimhood, and memory of the most recent military dictatorships. Her work broadly looks at how cultural production, including street art, installations, and film, engages with pressing contemporary issues, such as state violence, transitional politics, and human rights.

Flavia Soares

Center Coordinator

Office: AL-626

Phone: (619) 594-4771

Email: [email protected]

Flavia Soares is the Center Coordinator. She graduated with an MBA degree in Business & Management Systems from Candido Mendes University, Rio de Janeiro/Brazil, and also has a BS in Business Administration. With over 10 years of management consulting experience, most of them leading management improvement projects at Petrobras S/A, she seeks to use her background as well as her cultural and language skills to promote collaboration and support the Center for Brazilian Studies in all its areas of expertise.

Isabele de Lima

Assistant/Student

Office: AL-626
Email: [email protected]

Isabele is a graduate student in the Sociology Department, with a focus on Brazilian studies, race/ethnic studies and gender studies. She was born and raised in Brazil, but pursued higher education in the United States, graduating from UC San Diego with a BA in Sociology and Theatre. She is excited to stay connected with the Brazilian community through her work at Center as a graduate student assistant.

Amethyst Sanchez

Assistant/Student

Office: AL-626

As a graduate student in the Anthropology Department, Amethyst’s research interests coincide with her degrees in both Anthropology and Sociology, with particular emphasis on activism, feminism, structural inequality, and historical archaeology. Though she is Argentine and not Brazilian, Amethyst is happy to be engaging with her Latin American heritage through working as a research assistant and staff member at the Center.

Associated Faculty & Staff

Ryan Abman
Assistant Professor
Economics
Email: [email protected]

Stuart Aitken
Professor
Geography
Email: [email protected]

Cristina Alfaro
Professor
Dual Language and English Learner Education
Email: [email protected]

Adisa Alkebulan
Associate Professor and Chair
Africana Studies
Email: [email protected]

Thaís da C. L. Alves
Professor and Chair
Construction Engineering and Management
Email: [email protected]

Cristian Aquino-Sterling
Associate Professor
School of Teacher Education (STE) and Associate Dean for Diversity and International Affairs, College of Education
Email: [email protected]

Jessica Baham
International Programs Coordinator
College of Arts and Letters
Email: [email protected]

Mark Ballam
Managing Director
CIBER, College of Business
Email: [email protected]

Rebecca Bartel
Assistant Director
Center for Latin American Studies
Email: [email protected]

Pablo Ben
Associate Professor
History
Email: [email protected]

Trent Biggs
Professor
Geography
Email: [email protected]

Fernando J. Bosco
Professor and Chair
Geography
Email: [email protected]

Amanda Bryant
Assistant Director
CIBER
Email: [email protected]

Grace Cheng
Director
Center for Human Rights
Email: [email protected]

Cássia De Abreu
Lecturer
Portuguese
Email: [email protected]

Kevin Delgado
Associate Professor
Music
Email: [email protected]

Fernando De Sales
Associate Professor
Geography
Email: [email protected]

Robert Edwards
Professor
Biology & Computer Science
Email: [email protected]

Salvador Espinosa
Associate Professor
Public Administration
Email: [email protected]

Daniela Gomes
Assistant Professor
Africana Studies
Email: [email protected]

Gabriel Gonzalez
Assistant Professor
Marketing
Email: [email protected]

Allen Gontz
Professor and Chair
Geology
Email: [email protected]

Lawrence Herzog
Professor
City Planning
Email: [email protected]

José Carmelo Interlando
Professor
Mathematics
Email: [email protected]

Zoe Jarocki
Undergraduate Instruction Librarian
Library & Information Access
Email: [email protected]

Susan Kiene
Professor
School of Public Health
Email: [email protected]

Matthew Lauer
Professor
Anthropology and Sustainability
Email: [email protected]

Arielle Levin
Professor
Geography
Email: [email protected]

Enrico Marcelli
Associate Professor
Sociology
Email: [email protected]

Madhavi McCall
Interim Associate Vice President
Office of Curriculum, Assessment, and Accreditation
Email: [email protected]

Anta Merritt
Lecturer
Africana Studies
Email: [email protected]

Nadezda Novakovic
Program Specialist
LARC
Email: [email protected]

Thomas Novotny
Professor
School of Public Health
Email: [email protected]

Ramona Pérez
Director
Center for Latin American Studies
Email: [email protected]

John Putman
Director
International Business Program
Email: [email protected]

Amy Schmitz Weiss
Professor
School of Journalism and Media Studies
Email: [email protected]

Gillian Sneed
Assistant Professor
School of Art + Design
Email: [email protected]

Charles Toombs
Professor
Africana Studies
Email: [email protected]u.edu

Milton Torikachvili
Professor
Physics
Email: [email protected]

Patricia van Damme
Advisor
College of Business
Email: [email protected]

Ricardo Vasconcelos
Professor
Portuguese
Email: [email protected]

Matthew Verbyla
Assistant Professor
Environmental Engineering
[email protected]

María Luisa Zúñiga
Associate Professor
School of Social Work
Email: [email protected]

Intercollegiate Advisory Board Members

Ryan Abman
Cássia de Abreu
Stuart Aitken
Thaís da C. L. Alves
Cristian Aquino-Sterling
Jessica Baham

Mark Ballam
Rebecca Bartel
Trent Biggs
Grace Cheng
Luciano Cruz
Fernando De Sales

Kevin Delgado
Salvador Espinosa
Daniela Gomes
Gabriel Gonzalez
Pam Lach
Paulo Lima

Gillian Sneed
Milton Torikachvili
Ricardo Vasconcelos
Matt Verbela
María Luisa Zúñiga

Visiting Scholars

Denise De Alcântara
Visiting Scholar
Email: [email protected]

Salvador Gullo Neto
Visiting Scholar
Email: [email protected]

Keila Pinezi
Visiting Scholar
Email: [email protected]

Lidiane Toledo
Visiting Scholar
Email: [email protected]