Who we are
Directors
Professor Michael Cohen is the Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) of the New School, a multi-disciplinary Master’s degree program focused on developing countries. Started in 2001, the GPIA currently has 400 graduate students from 62 countries, offers 75 courses each semester in subjects related to poverty and inequality, economic management, cities and urbanization, governance and human rights, and conflict and security. In its tenth year, the GPIA has already graduated 550 students who are working in development organizations around the world.
Margarita Gutman earned her PhD and architecture degree from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. She is an Associate Professor of Urban Studies and International Affairs at The New School University in New York. She is Profesora Titular Consulta at the Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo, Universidad de Buenos Aires, where she is in charge of the Direccion de Programas Internacionales and co-directs the Bicentennials Program. Dr. Gutman directs the Building Latin American Bicentennials program of the OLA at The New School and is the director of the President Néstor Kirchner Fellowship at the OLA.
Advisers
Bernardo Kliksberg is Chief Advisor, UNDP. Latinamerican Bureau, Honorary Profesor University of Buenos Aires, and author of many books, the most recent "First the people" coauthored with Nobel Amartya Sen. Kliksberg is the Senior Advisor of the Observatory on Latin America.
Fellows
Alberto Minujín, an Argentine Mathematician with postgraduate studies in Applied Statistics and Demography. He was Senior Programme Officer, Policy Analysis, at the Global Policy Section in the Division of Policy and Planning of UNICEF Head Quarters (New York), working on social policy, poverty and human rights issues. He has published numerous articles, papers and books, includingThe Middle Class Seduced and Abandoned, Globalization and Human Rights and The New Poor: Proposal for Inclusive Societies. Minujín is Observatory on Latin America Fellow and Director of Equity for Children.
Erika Grinberg is a journalist graduated from the Argentine school of journalism TEA, in 2000. In 2003 she was awarded the fellowship Nuevos Periodistas of Clarín newspaper, where she worked in the general information section. Among others, she worked in the following Argentine newspapers: La Razón, Buenos Aires Económico (BAE) and Perfil, in the national politics and international news sections. During 2006 y 2007 she was special reporter for Newsweek Argentina. She is a student of political science at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and she got a certificate in Global Affairs at New York University. Grinberg is a Fellow of the Observatory on Latin America OLA/The New School.
Current Staff
Valeria Luzardo is a Project Manager at the OLA. She is a graduate of the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) of The New School. Luzardo graduated in Communication Sciences at the Catholic University of Uruguay, a country in which she served as a journalist. She was coordinator of the OLA from February 2007 and December 2010 and Communication Assistant at the Latin American Bureau in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York. She is currently working in the area of social policy at the Latin American Center for Human Economy (CLAEH) in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Mandy Goodgoll is the Coordinator of the OLA and a student at the Graduate Program of International Affairs at The New School. She earned her BA in International Development Studies with a Minor in Business from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Mandy has lived and worked in a number of countries including Argentina, where, in conjunction with the Graduate Program's International Field Placement, she worked with the national water company to monitor and analyze the ongoing environmental clean-up process in Buenos Aires' highly contaminated Cuenca Matanza Riachuelo. Most recently she worked in Kenya with UN-Habitat where she focused her research on governance and urban issues related to water and waste management.
Past Staff
Cecilia Golombek is a graduate from the Graduate Program of International Affairs (GPIA) at The New School. She earned her BA from Tufts University with a major in History and a minor in Latin American Studies. After graduation she conducted an oral history project focusing on the 1976-1982 dictatorship in Argentina. Her most recent work experiences include sending FOIA requests for the Southern Cone Project of the National Security Archive and working at World Learning to coordinate the International Visitor Leadership Program of the US Department of State. Golombek was the Coordinator of the OLA from September 2009 to June 2011.
Cristina Gómez is a graduate of the Graduate Program of International Affairs (GPIA) at The New School. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) in Audiovisual Communication. After graduation she did a MA in Communication in the University mentioned and conducted an extensive research in Czech cinema studies. She has gained experience as a journalist working in the media sector. Gómez was a Program Associate of the OLA from December 2009 to May 2011.
Alejandra Otero is a graduate of the Graduate Program of International Affairs (GPIA) at The New School. She earned her BA from Universidad Monteavila -Venezuela- in Social Communication. She has been writing as a freelancer for El Nacional, one of the main Venezuelan newspapers, since 2002. She earned experience hosting a radio show on Ateneo 100.7 and reporting for Contrabando magazine. Her most recent job in Venezuela was in Globovision, as the co-host of the daily TV show Alo Ciudadano. In New York, she studied Political Science for one year at Columbia University and performed an internship at The New York Times Syndicate. Otero was a Program Associate of the OLA from December 2009 December 2010.
Tanushree Dutta Isaacman is a graduate of the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) at the New School with a concentration in development and environmental studies. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology and Society from Cornell University, where her culminating research project involved an attempt to better understand infant feeding practices amongst mothers across four Latin American and Caribbean countries. She, then, worked for two years in Cinco Pinos, Nicaragua as a community health specialist with the Peace Corps. Together with Nicaraguan NGOs and the Ministry of Health, she planned and implemented various health programs directed towards adolescents. Since returning to the U.S., she has worked as an English and Literacy teacher with immigrants at the Harlem YMCA. More recently, she worked as a research assistant at the World Policy Institute on environmental and microfinance projects. Dutta Isaacman was a Program Associate with the OLA from July 2010 to December 2010.
Chelsea Long is a graduate from the Graduate Program of International Affairs (GPIA) at The New School. She earned her Bachelor of Science from Nebraska Wesleyan University with majors in Political Science and Sociology-Anthropology and a minor in American Minority Studies. She has since gained experience working in the non-profit sector and participated in the 2008 GPIA International Fieldwork Program, where she interned at Fundación SES (Sustentabilidad Educación Solidaridad) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Chelsea was a Program Associate of the OLA from September 2008 to September 2009.
Ximena Maroto is a graduate from the Graduate Program of International Affairs (GPIA) at The New School. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Universidad Iberoamericana -México- in International Relations with majors in International Politics. She gained experience working at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) - México and in the non-profit sector. Ximena was a Program Associate of the OLA from December 2008 to December 2009.
The New School University has distinguished faculty who are working on and in Latin America, including:
Louis Bickford, an American expert in human rights and transitional justice. He was a Program Director at the International Center for Transitional Justice. He has worked extensively in Chile and South Africa and particularly on the role of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. He has published widely on the politics of memory and human rights.
Robert Buckley, Senior Fellow of the Graduate Program in International Affairs of The New School, and Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York. Former Chief Economist of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Senior Housing Adviser of the World Bank. He is the author of several books on housing and housing finance, and has worked in over 40 developing countries.
Gabriel Diaz Maggioli, Director of the MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and Chair of the English Language Studies at The New School University. He came to New York from Montevideo where he most recently served as National Coordination for the Modern Foreign Languages Department of the National Teacher Education College. He has authored numerous articles, book chapters, and curriculum guides for teachers in Latin America and the United States.
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Professor of International Affairs of the Graduate Program in International Affairs of The New School. She was the director of the Human Development Report of UNDP for ten years. She is a member of the United Nations Committee on Development Policy, and one of the leading specialist in the field of human development. She has published many books and articles and has worked throughout the world, and recently published a book on genetically modified crops with case studies on Argentina and Brazil.
Alec Gershberg, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy with experience at the World Bank on education policy in Latin America. He leads Milano students to Mexico City for a one week field course on educational policy each spring semester. He is lead author of the book Beyond 'Bilingual' Education: New Immigrants and Public School Policies in California.
Barry Herman, an American economist, former Senior Advisor of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations and coordinator of Financing for Development Conference in Monterrey, Mexico in 2002. His latest book, jointly edited with Christian Barry and Lydia Tomitova, is Dealing Fairly with Developing Country Debt.
Christopher London, Assistant Professor of Practice in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of The New School. He received his PhD in Development Sociology from Cornell University. He lived and worked in Colombia for more than eight years, studying the rural sector an particularly coffee and food issues. He also directed an NGO focused on education in Nepal and Uganda. In 2009 2010 he was the executive director of the North American Congress on Latin America NACLA.
Peter Lucas, an American specialist on human rights and media with long history working in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. His research and teaching interests include international studies in human rights, human rights and photography, the poetics of witnessing, peace education, human rights education, and documentary practice.
Thomas O'Donnell, Visiting Faculty of the Graduate Program in International Affairs of The New School, and Specialist on oil and natural resources in Latin America. He spent two years in Venezuela as a Fulbright Scholar studying petroleum policy and has written widely on the global politics and economics of oil.
Aida Rodriguez, Professor at the Milano School of Urban Policy and Management, with long experience in Latin America with Rockefeller Foundation. She co-authored "Latino Nonprofits: The Role of Intermediaries in Organizational Capacity Building," in A Future for Everyone: Innovative Social Responsibility and Community Partnerships.
This program would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Julien J. Studley Foundation