Trip Leaders and Organizers

Carolina is a Senior Lecturer in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at Tulane University and is the Associate Director of the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute. She holds a B.A. from Wofford College and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina. Her research focuses on Latin American literature, particularly literature from Cuba. Carolina is our guide and leader during the institute. She works with groups in Cuba all year around including our summer student programs.

Valerie is the Director of Planning and Management at the Stone Center for Latin American Studies and has been with the Stone Center since 1995. Her responsibilities include overall planning and supervision of outreach activities, media and public relations including production of Center publications, and coordination of all funding initiatives of the Stone Center including major gift solicitation and institutional and foundation applications. Prior to her current position she coordinated educational outreach activities through the Latin American Resource Center. She holds a B.A. in Spanish and a M.Ed. in Second Language Instruction, both from Tulane University, and previously taught high school Spanish and adult ESL in the metro-New Orleans area.

Denise manages educational and community programs for Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies. Denise coordinates the Stone Center’s K-12 program by developing teacher workshops, summer institutes, curricular resources, study abroad opportunities and managing the LARC national film lending library. She has developed curriculum units and curriculum guides with teachers as part of annual summer institutes and film festivals. She is currently the Co-coordinator of the Américas Book Award, an award sponsored by the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP) Denise earned her BA in Spanish from Reed College and her Masters in International Communication from American University in Washington, DC. Prior to joining the Stone Center staff in 2006, Denise worked for American University, taught ESL and worked for a corporate translation firm, LanguageLink Translation in Vancouver, WA.

Jennifer (Jen) Triplett is a comparative historical sociologist operating in the subfields of political sociology, sociology of culture, and collective behavior and social movements. She is particularly interested in the political participation of traditionally marginalized groups (especially women) in various countries, times, and regime types. Previous projects have included examinations of state/movement relations in authoritarian Peru, women's mobilization and party affiliation in post-Chavez Venezuela, and women's contributions to ideas of nationalism in indenpendence-era Cuba. Jen's primary focus at the moment involves stuyding how the political salience of identities changes over time, using the case of gender in revolutionary Cuba.

Elizabeth is a high school Spanish Teacher at Indian Trail High School and Academy in Kenosha, Wisconsin where she currently teaches upper levels of Spanish. She holds a B.A. from Eastern Illinois University in English Literature, a B.A. in Spanish Literature from the University of Wisconsin Parkside, and a M.A. in Educational Leadership from Carthage College. Prior to her present teaching position, Elizabeth taught middle school levels of Spanish through AP. Her passion is researching and teaching Spanish and Latin American culture and identity. She participated in the Teaching Cuban Culture & Society Educator Institute in Cuba in 2015 and wrote curriculum focusing on Afro-Cubans in Cuban society.