Graduate Students

Karol Alzate

PhD Candidate 5115 Dwinelle Hall karol_alzatelondono@berkeley.edu Office Hours: T 12-1 pm (Zoom); W 9-10 am (in-person)

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/

Alejandra Decker

Alejandra Decker is a Ph.D candidate in Hispanic Languages & Literatures and a Chancellor's Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research is on 19th century Latin American and Latinx literatures, science, and technology, with a special focus on mining literature and scientific writing in postcolonial Mexico. She has taught Spanish language and literature courses for both heritage speakers and foreign language learners.

Lydia Millhon

Lydia Millhon is a PhD student in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley with a designated emphasis in New Media. She completed her M.A. in Latin American Studies from the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University and received her B.A. with Honors in Spanish at Wake Forest University. Interested in poetry and visual arts from mid-twentieth-century Cuba and Brazil, Lydia studies concrete art as a vehicle for transnational discourses of modernity, race, identity, and cultural production.

Astur Agún

1st-year Graduate Student

Anahit Manoukian

Anahit Manoukian is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese with a Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies. Her research and teaching bridge the early modern and modern periods, with a particular emphasis on the long eighteenth century, identity and belonging, nation-building, imperial and intellectual history, transatlantic and comparative studies, and geopolitics.

Her dissertation “From Subjects to Citizens: The Construction of Civic Identity in Spain” traces the emergence of civic consciousness in...

Derek Allen

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...

Emiliano Arizmendi-Castilla

I’m a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. My aim at UC Berkeley is to study and develop the concept of Movement, with its many understandings, as it applies to heterogeneous experiences within Southern California through poetry, literature, and history. Through extracurricular work, I seek to increase access to higher education for marginalized communities. I graduated from Crafton Hills College with an AA in Economics. After community college, I transferred to the University of Redlands. There, I completed a BA in Spanish and Political Science.

My research interests...

Luis Amaya Madrid

Luis Amaya Madrid is a PhD student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. He received his BA in Psychology and Linguistics from the University of Arizona and his MA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the University of Guelph. He is interested in Latin American literature, Indigenous studies, and digital humanities.

Marguerite Morlan

Marguerite Morlan is a Ph.D. student in the Romance Languages and Literatures program. She earned a B.A. in Spanish and a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California, as well as an M.A. in Spanish Linguistics from New Mexico State University. Her research explores language attitudes and identity in the Catalan Countries. She employs mixed-methods approaches in both sociolinguistics and linguistic landscape studies.