Biographies

Ellen Cohen is a native of New Orleans and graduated from Smith College with a B.A. in Spanish Literature and Philosophy/Linguistics. She also holds the degree of Master of Education of the Deaf from Smith College. Ellen has taught Special Education and Spanish for 23 years and currently is the Chair of the Spanish Department at Metairie Park Country Day School. Ellen plans to create a nine-week long course of study on the Maya and Guatemala for Spanish IV students. After spending the summer of 1979 in Guatemala, she has been interested in returning to the country to learn more about the culture, history and politics of the people of Guatemala.

Kathryn E. Sampeck (BA, MA, University of Chicago; PhD Tulane University), an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Illinois State University, is a specialist in the archaeology and ethnohistory of Spanish colonialism. She has recently founded the Afro-Latin American Archaeological Consortium, an initiative supported by the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at the Hutchins Center, to promote research, programs, planning, and projects centered on Afro-Latin American contexts, issues, and material worlds. Sampeck’s publications include numerous book chapters in scholarly anthologies as well as articles in American Antiquity, Historical Archaeology, the International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Mesoamérica, Ancient Mesoamerica, and Journal of Latin American Geography. She is co-editor (with Stacey Schwartzkopf) of Substance and Seduction: Ingested Commodities in Mesoamerica, to be published by University of Texas Press in fall 2017. She was Guest Editor for the summer 2015 edition of the journal Ethnohistory, “Colonial Mesoamerican Literacy: Method, Form, and Consequence,” published in cooperation with the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University. Sampeck was a 2015-2016 Central America Visiting Scholar, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and Visiting Scholar, Afro-Latin American Research Institute. She has also received fellowships from the John Carter Brown Library and the John D. Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg as well as grants from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Social Science Research Council, Fulbright program, and Cherokee Preservation Foundation. She is the Secretary-elect for the Archaeology Division of the American Anthropological Association and serves on the editorial boards for Ethnohistory, Historical Archaeology, and the International Journal of Historical Archaeology. Her current book project, How Chocolate Came to Be, examines the role of Afro-Central Americans and their daily lives in one of the most extreme colonial environments in all Latin America—the birthplace of chocolate.

Ixnal Ambrocia Cuma Chavez lives in Santa María de Jesús, Sacatepequez, Antigua, Guatemala where she is a sociolinguist and teacher researching and providing workshops on unique elements of Maya culture. She has worked on a national plan to promote social education for children through the United Nations in Antigua. She is a lead consultant on the development of textbooks and teaching of Kaqchikel Maya. She creates guides for schools on how to support Bilingual Education. She has worked with teachers and schools on the development of tools for teaching in Kaqchikel Maya. While in New Orleans, Ixnal is not only teaching Kaqchikel to Tulane students on campus. She is also visiting local K-12 schools and public libraries to introduce New Orleans children and teachers to Kaqchikel Maya through song. She also shares indigenous perspectives on the benefits of natural herbs and the preservation of our environment, an important concern for those of us living in the Gulf South fighting to preserve the wetlands. Ixnal‘s sister is also helping to bring lessons of the Maya into the community.

Brooke Grant is a Professor of Practice in the Teacher Preparation & Certification Program at Tulane University where she prepares new teachers for the PK-12 classroom. In addition to teaching, she works to support teachers in the New Orleans area by running S.S. NOLA and serving as Program Director for AfterClass, both of which were designed with local teachers in mind.

Dr. Grant also works to support first-year Tulane students in their transition from high school to college as a First-Year Faculty Fellow, First-Year seminar instructor, and First-Year Residential Faculty Mentor. Additionally, she is proud to be a College Track mentor and a member of the First Generation Faculty & Staff Council.

Prior to working in higher education, Dr. Grant enjoyed a ten year career as a certified middle school social studies teacher outside of Buffalo, New York. She has an undergraduate degree in Political Science and International Relations from Canisius College, as well a Masters and PhD Degree in Education from the University at Buffalo.

Denise Woltering-Vargas 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 including, Teaching Cuba: A K-12 Social Justice Curriculum Unit, Geography & Identity in the Brazilian Amazon, and Ecuador’s Oil Legacy: Media Skills, Justice, and Preservation. She is also a Coordinator of the Américas Book Award, an award sponsored by the national Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs. She received her undergraduate degree in Spanish Literature from Reed College, a Masters in International Communication from American University and an MBA from Tulane University.