Graduate Students

Coral Murphy Marcos

Coral Murphy Marcos is a PhD student in the Hispanic Languages and Literatures program. She holds a B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where she studied Journalism. She completed a master’s degree in Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Her master’s thesis was published in Mother Jones magazine, where she wrote about the rise of a far-right political party in Puerto Rico. She has also written for The New York Times, The Associated Press, National Public Radio, The Guardian, El País, The Nation magazine, and other publications. Her research...

Niko Schwarz

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/

Anna Knall

Anna Knall is a PhD student in the Linguistics track of the Romance Languages and Literatures program at UC Berkeley. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Hispanic Linguistics and Political Science (2024) from the University of California, Berkeley, where she completed a senior thesis on grammatical gender assignment strategies among Spanish-English bilinguals during code-switching. Her current research interests focus on sociolinguistic aspects within diaspora Romanian communities, particularly how contact between Romanian and other Romance varieties influences the phonetic and...

Julián Vargo

Julian Vargo is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Linguistics at UC Berkeley. He holds a B.A. Linguistics and B.A. in Spanish & Portuguese from UC Berkeley (Highest Distinction). Research Interests: Phonetics Phonetics-phonology interface Sociolinguistics Language Contact Language Revitalization Contact: julianvargo@berkeley.edu 5102 Dwinelle Hall UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA...

Jair Jáuregui Torres

Jair is a PhD student in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. He received his BA in Spanish and Art History, with a minor in Education, from the University of California, Davis in 2021, while also working as a tutor and peer advisor for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. His main research interest is the relationship between literature and the visual arts, including ekphrasis, iconicity, and art criticism, from Latin America mainly during the late 19th to the early 20th centuries.

Verónica Grajeda

I'm a PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics. My current research at Cal focuses on the phonetics and phonology of U.S. Spanish as well as language attitudes and ideologies of U.S. Spanish speakers. As a sociolinguist I seek to apply my findings toward validating U.S. Spanish and increasing its legitimacy in educational settings. I received my B.A. in French and Linguistics at UCLA and subsequently received an M.A. in Applied Linguistics at Teachers College, Columbia University. I spent the next 9 years teaching English as a second language, followed by Spanish and French in the California K-...

Liam Seeley

Liam G. Seeley is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley. He holds an A.B. in Spanish & Portuguese Languages & Literatures from Princeton University. His research focuses on contemporary vegetal aesthetics, visual culture, and world-making in/beyond Latin America and Brazil. Drawing on decolonial feminist scholarship and his own involvement in seed farming and rematriation, he is especially interested in dream, breath, and seeds as sites of cosmopolitical sovereignty and resistance amidst colonial modernity.

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