Graduate Students

Gabriela C. "Gabi" Rodríguez Lebrón

Ph.D. Student

Gabriela C. “Gabi” Rodríguez Lebrón is a PhD student in the Hispanic Languages and Literatures program. She holds a B.A. from Colgate University, where she studied Spanish Literature and History. She completed two theses, one on nature in Garcilaso de la Vega’s poetry (High Honors) and another on texts written by Medieval female mystics (Honors). Her research interests include, but are not limited to Garcilaso de la Vega, Renaissance lyric (specifically bucolic poetry across traditions), the literary representations of nature, the Early Modern period, the history of ideas, mythology and...

Niko Schwarz

Ph.D. Student
My name is Nikolai Andrés Schwarz-Acosta. I am a second-year Ph.D. student in Hispanic Languages and Literature on track 3 (the linguistics track). My research primarily focuses on phonetics and speech perception with an emphasis on perceptual adaptation. Please refer to my website for more information. Personal website: https://schwarzacosta.com/

Liam Seeley

Ph.D. Student

Liam G. Seeley is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley, and a member of the Coletivo de Tradutores Berkeley-Brasil. He holds an A.B. in Spanish & Portuguese Languages & Literatures from Princeton University. His research focuses on atmospheric media and air in the de/composition of the colonial-modern Brazilian archive. He is also interested in mud, mourning, seeds, humming, thimbleberries, and the peculiar roundness of bumblebees.

Julián Vargo

Ph.D. Student
Julian Vargo is a Ph.D. student of Hispanic Linguistics. He is the project manager for the Multilingual Hispanic Speech in California Corpus, the manager of the Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley, and the co-coordinator for...

Derek Allen

Ph.D. Candidate

Derek Allen is a Ph.D. Candidate in Luso-Brazilian Literature and Culture with a Designated Emphasis in Film. His courses taught at UC Berkeley include: “Introduction to Portugal, Brazil, and other Portuguese-Speaking Cultures,” “Reading and Composition: Postcolonial Identities in Luso-African Literature and Film”, and “Intensive Portuguese for Spanish Speakers.” He is the recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award.

He received his M.A. in Portuguese from Indiana University, where he was also an Associate Instructor of Spanish and Portuguese language...

Annual Working Groups

2026-2027 Working Groups

These Working Groups and Conversation Groups are organized by graduate students in Spanish and Portuguese, often in collaboration with colleagues from other departments and/or with faculty.

AI and Ecology in Latin American Art

Contact Information: Chloe Mauvais

Bate-Papo

Bate-papo welcomes people of all levels of Portuguese, from complete beginners to native speakers, to join us for informal conversations with snacks and coffee. Every Wednesday from 1:30 - 2:30 pm in...

Application Information

Upcoming Informational Session:

Register for Informational Session for the admission to the Ph.D Program in Hispanic Languages and Literatures (HLL) here. For the Informational Session for the Ph.D in Romance Languages and Literatures (RLL), please contact Pichaya Kositsawat at frenchga@berkeley.edu.

Applicants are encouraged to...

Current Students

Graduate Handbooks

Current students should refer to the Graduate Handbook.

For information about teaching, refer to the the GSI Handbook.

Students should have access to the Department bCourses site, which contains more information. Contact Department chair for access, if you...

Degrees Granted (2000-Present)

The following table chronologically lists Ph.D. degrees conferred from 2000 to present.

For degrees granted before 2000, pages are available here:

1915-1950 1952-1980 1982-1999 YEAR NAME DISSERTATION TITLE DIRECTOR Latest Position 2000 Álvarez, Pilar La casa y la nación en la...

Sophia Isabelle Duncan

Ph.D. Student

Sophia is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley. She holds a B.A. in International Literary and Visual Studies and Spanish from Tufts University (2024), where she completed a thesis examining conceptions of race and (inter)nationalism between the U.S. Black liberation movement and the Cuban Revolution. She’s broadly interested in racial constructions of national identity and translations of Marxism in Latin America and the Caribbean.