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Our Visiting (or Affiliate) Academics actively participate in a variety of activities by contributing to the Institute's events, research and teaching programmes.
If you are interested in applying to become a visiting scholar at UCL Institute of the Americas, please consult UCL's general guidance and terms and conditions here. Your application should be address to the Director of Research, Dr Néstor Castañeda. Please mention in your application if there is a particular member of Institute staff that you would like to work with during your visit.
Current Honorary and Visiting Academics
- Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas
Honorary Professor
Victor Bulmer-Thomas is Honorary Professor at the UCL Institute of the Americas and Professor Emeritus of London University. He was Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies from 1992 to 1998 and Director of Chatham House from 2001-2006. From 2007 to 2010 he was Visiting Professor at Florida International University during which time he produced his latest book, The Economic History of the Caribbean from the Napoleonic Wars (Cambridge University Press, 2012). He has published extensively in the field amassing over 20 books either as author or as editor, including his Political Economy of Central America since 1920 (CUP, 1987); The Economic History of Latin America Since Independence (CUP, 1994, 2nd edn. 2003) and the two volume Cambridge Economic History of Latin America published in 2006.
- Dr Elena Butti
Honorary Research Fellow
Dr. Elena Butti is a Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of the Americas, University College London and a Research Associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding of IHEID in Geneva. She holds a PhD and a Post-Doc from the University of Oxford. Her research interests revolve around youth, drugs, crime, and precarity at the urban margins in Latin America and Colombia, specifically. Her current book project "We Are the Nobodies: Youth, violence and drug-dealing in and around Medellín" is an ethnographic exploration of adolescents’ first steps into drug-related crime in contemporary Colombia. She has collaborated with several international organizations on matters related to the Youth, Peace and Security agenda, and she currently works as the Global Youth Programming Advisor for the humanitarian NGO War Child. Elena also an amateur film-maker and have made extensive use of participatory film-making as an ethnographic research technique. More info about Elena’s research, work, and films can be found at www.elenabutti.com.- Dr Steven Cushion
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
Steve Cushion is co-convenor of the Caribbean Seminar series at UCL Institute of the Americas. He has published books and articles on the Cuban revolution, Caribbean labour history, anti-Nazi resistance, the Grenadian revolution, reparations for slavery and climate change.
As assistant secretary of the TUC LESE Environmental Sustainability and Just Transition Network he is working with the Oil Workers Trade Union of Trinidad and Tobago, the Southern Trelawny Environmental Agency and the Jamaica Environment Trust with the aim of developing a Just Transition policy for the extractive industries in the Caribbean.
As a member of the TUC LESE Reparations for Afrikan Enslavement Steering Group he is investigating links between slavery and Dorset.
- Dr Vinicius de Carvalho
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
Dr Vinicius Mariano de Carvalho was born in Barra Mansa, Brazil. He received his PhD from the University of Passau, Germany, and his undergraduate and MA degrees from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil. He joined King’s in 2014 and before he was Associate Professor for Brazilian Studies at Aarhus University (2008-2014), Denmark, where he was also Director of the Latin American Centre (2012-2014). Vinicius was a Lieutenant in the Brazilian Army (2007-2008), serving in the Military Technical Corps. At King’s, Dr Carvalho is Vice Dean (International) for the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy, and between 2020 and 2022, he was director of King’s Brazil Institute. At the War Studies Department, he is the Convener of the MA in Strategic Communications and teaches UG modules on Latin America issues.
Dr Carvalho is the Circle U. Academic Chair Programme Coordinator.
Dr Carvalho has played an active role contributing to the field of Brazilian studies, founding and editing Brasiliana – Journal for Brazilian Studies and as Editor of the Anthem Brazilian Studies Series.
Dr Carvalho is also an Associate Researcher at the Centre for Strategic Studies of the Brazilian Navy. Parallel to his academic career, Dr. Carvalho is a music conductor and currently directs the King’s Brazil Ensemble.
His Research is multidisciplinary and cover topics such as Environmental security, Brazilian and Latin American Studies, Civil-Military Relations, Strategy, Strategic Communications, Brazilian Music, Literature and Culture. Find out more about Dr Vinicius de Carvalho.
- Professor Gad Heuman
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
Gad Heuman is one of the convenors of the Caribbean Seminar at the Institute of the Americas. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Warwick and a former Director of the Centre for Caribbean Studies at Warwick. He is the author of Between Black and White, The Killing Time and The Caribbean: A Brief History and has edited books on Slave Resistance, Labour, The History of Slavery, and the Post-Emancipation Caribbean. He is the editor of the journal Slavery & Abolition.
- Patrick Holdich, OBE
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
Patrick Holdich was until 2022 a senior UK civil servant and retired as Head of the FCDO’s Research Analysts, the research department and internal think-tank of the FCDO. He studied at Bangor University and the LSE and had a brief early academic career in the 1980’s at the LSE and Queen Mary College as a Lecturer in History. He joined the FCO in 1985 and worked for over 35 years a career specialist on North American politics and history. This included two diplomatic postings to Canada (Ottawa, Montreal) and being appointed Head of the Americas Research Group in the FCO from 1998-2006.
Aside from conducting in-house research within the FCO to help shape UK government policy, he maintained an active relationship with a range of UK and international research centres and think-tanks. He is a long-standing collaborator with the Institute of the Americas and contributor to conferences and seminar programmes. His primary focus as a Fellow at the Institute will be on Canadian politics and contemporary history
- Dr David Hope
Honorary Lecturer
Dr Hope is a Lecturer in Political Economy in the King’s College London Department of Political Economy. He is an Honorary Lecturer at UCL, in his role as secondary supervisor for one of our research students. Learn more about Dr David Hope.
- Dr Richard Johnson
Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Johnson is a Lecturer in US Politics & Policy at Queen Mary University of London. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at UCL, in his role as secondary supervisor for one of our research students. Read more about Dr Johnson.
- Dr Yael Mabat
Visiting Scholar
I am a visiting scholar at the Institute of the Americas, University College London, a post-doctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University, and a lecturer at Ben Gurion University, Israel. Broadly, my research focuses on modern Christianity in the Americas with a particular interest in transnational religious encounters and how they shaped local social, economic, and political structures. My forthcoming book Sacrifice and Regeneration: Seventh-day Adventism and Religious Transformation in the Andes (https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496216700/), examines the unique success of the Seventh-day Adventist missionaries in the Andean highlands. More recently I have been working on the intersection between religion and modern medicine, primarily as manifested through the work of medical missionaries.
- Dr Daniel Matin
Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Matlin is a Reader in History of the United States of America at King’s College London. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at UCL, in his role as secondary supervisor for one of our research students. Read more about Dr Matlin.
- Dr Emily Morris
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
Dr Morris is a development economist and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Institute of the Americas. As a country analyst (at the Economist Intelligence Unit and Inter-American Development Bank) as well as an academic and consultant, the focus of her writing and public engagement has been the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean. Her current research is mainly on Cuba’s recent economic policy and performance, and its current process of reform and prospects.
In order to foster a range of multi-disciplinary research partnerships between the UK and the Caribbean to support progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, she has been building a UCL-Cuba Research Network, and has co-founded the ‘Caribbean Research and Innovation Collaboration for Knowledge Exchange and Transfer’ (CRICKET) community interest company. Topics of projects supported so far include sustainable urban transport, climate change adaptation, sustainable local development, and renewable energy financing and technologies.
Past Honorary and Visiting Academics
Find out how some of our past visiting academics spent their time with us:
- Dr Catarina Barbieri
Honorary Research Associate
Dr Barbieri holds a PhD (2012), Masters (2008) and LL.B.(Law - 2003) from the University of São Paulo Law School (Brazil). She was a Fox International Fellow (2010-2011) at Yale University and visiting doctoral student at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law (2011). Read more about Dr Barbieri.
- Dr Bruno Cesar Barbosa
Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Bruno Cesar Barbosa spent time in London conducting a literature review of doctoral theses, Master’s dissertations, books and articles, correlating this scientific production with discussions around public health policies and rights claims by social movements to place his work on Brazil into comparative context. Read more about Dr Barbosa.
- Dr Mario Bronfman
Dr Mario Bronfman is Associate Researcher at El Colegio de Mexico (México) and Consultant to The Ford Foundation.
From 2004 to 2015 Dr Bronfman was Representative of The Ford Foundation for Mexico and Central America and in charge of the Cuba portfolio. Dr Bronfman spent a month at UCL-IA writing a report on the Future of International Cooperation with/from/on Cuba.
- Dr Elizabeth Cooper
Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Elizabeth Cooper is the Curator for Latin American and Caribbean Collections at the British Library. She was an Honorary Research Fellow at UCL, co-supervising Naomi Oppenheim’s PhD studies as part of a Collaborative Research Partnership between The British Library and UCL Institute of the Americas.
- Professor Richard Follett
British Association for American Studies/UCL Institute of the Americas Research Fellow
Professor Follett is currently writing White Fright: Slave Revolts in American Memory, a history of slave rebellions and their legacies from the 18th to early 20th centuries. He is also completing Plantation Kingdom: The American South and its Global Commodities, co-authored with Sven Beckert, Peter Coclanis, and Barbara Hahn. Both books are under contract with Johns Hopkins University Press. Visit Professor Follet's University of Sussex website profile here. [external source]
- Professor Roberto Gargarella
Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor
Currently at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Argentina, Professor Gargarella was the 2014 Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at UCL Institute of the Americas. He is a distinguished Argentine lawyer and sociologist, with doctoral degrees from Universidad de Buenos Aires (1991) and University of Chicago (1993). Click here to visit Professor Gargarella's profile at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella. [external source]
- Dr Andrea Gartenlaub
Visiting Researcher
Dr Gartenlaub holds a PhD in Social Sciences (2018), Masters of Arts in Political Science (2009) and Bachelor in Social Communication (2000) from the University of Chile (Chile). She was a visiting doctoral student at the University of Georgetown Center of Latin American Studies (CLAS) (2015). Also, she served as Communications Advisor to the Cabinet of the National Health Fund of the Government of Chile. She works on the areas of Elites and Political Parties, Social Public Policy, and Gender. Currently teaching and researching in the Universidad Autonoma of Chile. For more information on her research click here. [external source]
- Dr Terri-Ann Gilbert-Roberts
Dr Gilbert-Roberts is a Jamaican regionalist with an interest in the politics of development, particularly at the intersection of governance, regionalism and youth development.
While at UCL Americas, as a Commonwealth Academic Fellow, Dr Gilbert-Roberts explored the dynamics of youth participation in regional governance and the governance of development.
- Dr Andrei Gómez-Suárez
Honorary Senior Research Associate
Andrei Gómez-Suárez is the author of Genocide, Geopolitics and Transnational Networks(Routledge, 2015) and El Triunfo del No (Icono, 2016). His current work focuses on restricted space, civil society peacebuilding, and transitional justice. Read more about Dr Gómez-Suárez.
- Professor Ricardo López-Pedreros
Leverhulme Visiting Professor
Professor Ricardo López-Pedreros’s visited the Institute as Leverhulme Visiting Professor from September 2021 to June 2022. During this period Professor López-Pedreros worked on his research project on contested democracy in Latin America in the second half of the twentieth century, which evolved into several planned publications, including two co-edited volumes on the histories of Colombia to be published by Routledge, a monograph titled The Social Foundations of Neo-Liberalism: A History of Society, Colombia, 1970-2016 and a book manuscript, provisionally titled The Iconoclast Lives of Gabriel Restrepo: Transnational Knowledge, Power, and Subjectivities in the Colombian Long Twentieth Century. He also completed work on a Spanish translation, published by Planeta, of his monograph Makers of Democracy: A Transnational History of the Middle Classes in Colombia and of a co-edited volume on the histories of the middle classes in Latin America, published by Routledge. This co-edited volume will also be published in Spanish by University of Rosario Press (Colombia) and University of Cuajimalpa (Mexico) in Spring 2023.
In addition to conducting his own research, Professor López-Pedreros took part in a number of Institute events, including his Leverhulme Trust Lecture, titled América and the Elites without History: Some Questions on Democracy as Domination. He also taught a masters-level module on the history of neoliberalism in Latin America, as well as contributing to a number of other modules as a guest lecturer.
- Professor Morna Macleod
Honorary Senior Research Associate
Morna Macleod is currently working on internal individual and family displacement triggered by organized crime in Central Mexico, and coordinates a monthly seminar bringing together academics, students and practitioners from various countries. Click here to visit Morna’s website [external source] for more information about her research.
- Dr Christian O'Connell
British Association for American Studies/UCL Institute of the Americas Research Fellow
Dr O'Connell was Lecturer in American History at the University of Gloucestershire at the time of his visiting fellowship at UCL Americas.
As part of the BAAS/UCL Americas Fellowship, Christian worked on a new project which examines the black American South in British popular culture. He looked at representations of the life, culture and history the black South in popular programmes, starting from The Black and White Minstrel Show, up to recent documentaries by Sir Trevor MacDonald, Rick Stein and Hugh Laurie. Read more about Dr O'Connell.
- Dr Tom Packer
Honorary Research Fellow
Tom Packer was an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of the Americas until October 2022. He is also an Associate Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute in 2020-21. His research and teaching interests include US politics, elections, US Conservatism, and US history broadly defined. Previously, Packer has been a lecturer in US history at Oxford, a fellow in American Studies at both Warwick and the School of Advanced Studies (University of London), and a fellow in US Politics at Durham. His current research project is a study of Senator Jesse Helms and the politics of North Carolina.