Celebrating Our Scholars in Hispanic Heritage Month

During Hispanic Heritage Month, we are recognizing the Graduate Center’s role as a Hispanic-serving research university and celebrating the work of our scholars in fields from the humanities to the sciences. 

The Graduate Center is one of 20 of the nation’s top research universities that formed the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities to increase opportunity for those historically underserved by higher education. The alliance aims to double Hispanic doctoral students and increase the number of Hispanic professors by 20%.

Three Graduate Center faculty members are among the winners of the Crossing Latinidades grant competition. The professors will collaborate with faculty at other universities to lead interdisciplinary research projects that explore aspects of Latino arts and culture. 

Ph.D. students Jayson Castillo, Ricardo Martín Coloma, and Lidia Hernández-Tapia participated in an immersive Latino humanities summer program as part of the Crossing Latinidades Collaborative. 

Ph.D. candidate Beverlin Rosario-Williams (Psychology; Health Psychology and Clinical Science) started the Spanish-language YouTube channel Salud Mental al Detalle — translated as “Mental Health in Detail” in English — to explore mental health through a sociocultural lens.

Fabio Andrés Ávila, a Fulbright scholar, has a vision to use his biology research to work with non-governmental organizations to protect endangered, tropical forests, such as those he worked in as a forest engineer in the Andean and Caribbean regions of Colombia.  

Rosario Cecilio was a bilingual special education teacher in the Bronx when she got her first clear look at the stars at a Long Island observatory. Now she’s part of the inaugural class of Astrophysics master’s students – and she wants to be a role model to others. 

Maria Buitrago, herself an immigrant from Colombia, is pursuing a master’s degree in Digital Humanities to aid migrants and her career. 

Alumnus Eric Bayruns García (Ph.D. ’19, Philosophy), who focuses on the philosophy of race, epistemology, and Latin American philosophy, explains how race played a large role in his life as a Dominican and shares how his education at the Graduate Center helped him secure two tenure-track jobs. 

Alumnus Jorge A. Avila (Ph.D. ’19, Psychology; Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience training area) is now an INSPIRE postdoctoral fellow and has developed a mentoring program for the National Hispanic Network, which provides networking opportunities for addiction researchers throughout the United States.

Maria Augustina Checa (Ph.D. in Music, Ethnomusicology concentration), studies music cassette-making in Argentina and was one of the winners of the Images of Research exhibition with her photo of artisan cassette production.

Ph.D. candidate Paloma Rodrigo Gonzales (Anthropology) was named a 2022 Charlotte W. Newcombe Dissertation Fellow by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars. In her dissertation, she examines how colonialism and racism surround a dark-colored birthmark, known to this day as the Mongolian spot, that is prevalent among infants in Peru.