Hispanic Studies Graduate Assistants
Mauren Cortazar
Mauren is from Colombia, where she was raised and received her BA in Occupational Therapy. She worked in the educational field for seven years before moving to the EEUU. Upon arrival, she started working as a preschool teacher where she implemented some activities in Spanish with her students, making her more interested in deepening her knowledge in the Spanish language's culture, linguistics and literature. She is currently enrolled in her second year of the MA in Hispanic Studies and enjoys teaching a class in 1101 to help students to be successful at acquiring Spanish as a second language.
Christina Galindo
I’m a 2022 graduate from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with a B.A. in Modern Languages with a concentration in Spanish and a minor in Biology. I am also a Certified Pharmacy Technician with the Louisiana State Board of Pharmacy for over 10 years. I currently live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana but call the entire state of Louisiana my home. At the present moment, I am working on my masters in Hispanic Studies at Louisiana State University with a projected graduation date of May 2024. I volunteer at the LSU BCM, the LSU Chapter of Sigma Delta Pi, and Jefferson Baptist Church en Español, helping with translation projects, teaching ESL and Spanish classes, and participating in mission trips that benefit the communities I serve. Future projects include a cultural food blog with my LSU colleagues and a mission trip to Perú in June 2024.
Vivian Iles
My name is Vivian Iles, I have a BA in Spanish and Literature from the Technological University of Pereira in Colombia. I have a diploma in Virtual Education as well as diploma in Colombian sign language level III. Junior researcher of the research group ''Language and Education Studies'' Category A1 of Minciencias, collaborator of the PRESEEA-Pereira team and of the master's degree in linguistics at UTP. I have dedicated myself to the creation and advice of academic, institutional and business projects. I directed the research and cultural area of the El Abad Foundation for two years and was an English and Spanish teacher in Southeast Asia for a year, as well as a literacy teacher in two post-armed conflict zones (Las Eras, Huila and San Vicente del Caguán, Caquetá) complemented with theater and radio training to contribute to rural projects. These experiences have led me to the transformative work of communities from education and language. I carry out a personal project called: Expedition Happiness, which brings together neurolinguistic research, biodecoding and creative writing, so I currently aspire to complete a master's degree in linguistic concentration to complement my educational, research work and keep growing as a person.
Sadie Seilhan
Hello! My name is Sadie Seilhan. I am currently enrolled in the Hispanic Studies M.A. program intending on completing with a concentration in Linguistics. I graduated from Louisiana Tech University in 2022 with a B.A. in Modern Languages concentrated in Spanish. I have an interest in second language acquisition on any level, but in particular with children as a result of attending an immersion program throughout my early schooling. I am an avid advocator of immersion programs and other forms of early exposure to an L2 for children. After completing this program, I intend to explore teaching Spanish at different levels and continue researching and advocating for early L2 acquisition.
George Harvey Kennedy Stone
Joaquin Tapia Guerra
Alexandra Trapp