Staff

Pablo Piccato

Director

Professor Piccato received his B.A. from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1989 and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1997. His published work includes City of Suspects: Crime in Mexico City, 1900-1931 (Duke University Press, 2001), Congreso y Revolución: El parlamentarismo en la XXVI Legislatura (Cámara de Diputados, 1991), the edition of El Poder Legislativo en las décadas revolucionarias (Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, 1997), and, with Cristina Sacristán, of Actores, espacios y debates en la historia de la esfera pública en la ciudad de México (Instituto Mora, 2005). Forthcoming books include the edition, with Robert Buffington, of Mexican Crime Stories: Case Studies, Causes Célèbres, and Other True-to-Life Adventures in the Social Construction of Deviance  (University of New Mexico Press), and The Tyranny of Opinion: Honor in the Construction of the Mexican Public Sphere (Duke University Press). He is currently working on a political biography of poet Salvador Díaz Mirón, and on a history of Mexican civil society's responses to crime from the 1920s to the present.

Since coming to Columbia, Professor Piccato has served as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of History, Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, member of the University Senate and of the executive committees of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese as well as ILAS. He has been a fellow and is member of the International Advisory Board of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego. In Mexico he has taught courses at universities in Mexico City, Morelia, Xalapa, and Culiacán. He was a member of the editorial board of Signos Históricos and is member of the boards of Law and History Review and the Hispanic American Historical Review.

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Thomas J. Trebat

Executive Director

Prof. Tom Trebat is the Executive Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies and of the Institute’s Center for Brazilian Studies. He joins Columbia after a lengthy career on Wall Street dedicated to economic research on Latin America. Prior to joining ILAS in February 2005, Tom was Managing Director and Head of the Latin America team in the Economic and Market Analysis department of Citigroup. He joined Citicorp Securities in 1996 as the head of Emerging Market Research. Previously, he worked at Bankers Trust, the Ford Foundation, and Chemical Bank. As a senior international economist at Bankers Trust, he was involved in many aspects of country debt negotiations in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America during the 1980s. At the Ford Foundation, he served for four years as the Regional Director for Latin America and Caribbean Programs. At Chemical Bank, Tom organized and directed the emerging markets research group. Mr. Trebat has a Ph.D in economics from Vanderbilt University and remains active in teaching and publishing. He is also a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. His book, “Brazil's State-owned Enterprises: A Case Study of the State as Entrepreneur,” was published by Cambridge University Press in 1983.

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Eliza Kwon-Ahn

Student Affairs Coordinator

Eliza graduated in 1997 with BA in East Asian Languages & Area Studies, Spanish, and Portuguese from Rutgers University. As a Henry Rutgers Scholar, she conducted a graduate level research on "Koreans in Brazil: A Cultural Study of Life Between Two Cultures." She also received her MA in Latin American & Caribbean Studies and an Advanced Certificate in Museum Studies from New York University in 2001. Prior to joining ILAS in June 2003, she worked for different organizations, including as a Latin American Sales & Marketing Manager for a multinational company and as Project Research Assistant for "Brazil: Body and Soul" Exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. Her interest in Latin America is mainly in Brazil, Arts & Cultures, Immigration & Cultural Assimilation, National Identity, and Social and Education Development.

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Ruth E. Borgman

Language Coordinator

Prof. Borgman received her M.A. from the University of Puerto Rico and her PhD in Latin American Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.  As a full-time lecturer in the Spanish Department, she specializes in developing pedagogically innovative content-based Spanish courses, especially Mexican and Pre-Hispanic Studies.

Currently she has developed and taught a writing course for Spanish majors on “Contemporary Mexico: Myths and Realities.”  In the summer of 2008 she received an ILAS travel grant to research the Camino Real colonial route from Zacatecas, Mexico to Santa Fe, New Mexico as part of her new course “Four Migrations” between Mexico and United States, from Pre-Hispanic years to the current immigration crisis.

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Pamela Graham, Ph.D.

Research Librarian

Dr. Graham is the Latin American and Iberian Studies Librarian at Columbia University. She is responsible for selecting library materials in all subject areas about or from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal, and is also available to provide reference assistance and instruction to students and faculty. She received an MA and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; her dissertation was a study of immigration between the Dominican Republic and New York City. Dr. Graham's ongoing research interests include Caribbean politics and migration, especially questions of immigrant participation in homeland politics, and the political incorporation of immigrants into new countries of residence.

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Teresa Aguayo

Senior Program Coordinator

Teresa is senior program coordinator of the Institute of Latin American Studies and the Center for Brazilian Studies.  She previously worked as a research associate in the Economics Program at the Council on Foreign Relations and as a consultant for UNILEVER in New York City.  Teresa received her B.A. from NYU and her M.A. in Economics from the New School of Social Research. She is originally from Ecuador and her main interests in the region include the Brazilian economy, indigenous movements and Cuban music.

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Eileen O'Connor

Program Coordinator

Eileen received her B.A. in Romance Languages and Literature from Harvard University, and an M.A. in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from NYU. She has previously worked as an Outreach Coordinator for the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at NYU and as a Researcher and Spanish interpreter for a Boston University School of Public Heath study of HIV and Hepatitis-C. Her primary interests in Latin America include literature, literary translation, dance, Afro-Hispanic religions, and the intersections of popular religiosity, migration and activism.

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Anna Lindberg

Program Assistant

Anna Lindberg is a second-year dual degree student pursuing her MSSW and MPA, concentrating in international clinical social welfare and human rights. Ms. Lindberg has worked with immigrant and refugee populations since graduating from Vassar College with a B.A. in Latin American Studies in 2003. She most recently served as the Program Director of a UN funded torture treatment center in San Francisco. Ms. Lindberg has also lived and worked throughout Latin America as a public health advocate and community organizer, including projects in Honduras, Brazil, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. Last summer, Ms. Lindberg was granted an ILAS travel scholarship to travel to the Dominican Republic to establish a child abuse intervention program at a local children’s hospital. She has filled many other leadership roles in San Francisco's nonprofit sector, including her work as a Nonprofit Management Mentor with Upwardly Global, a Women’s Policy Institute Fellow with the Women’s Foundation of California, and a member of the Women’s Building Board of Directors. Ms. Lindberg is interested in how public policy affects clinical practice with immigrant and refugee populations in the United States, and seeks to advocate for just U.S. asylum policy reforms.