Institute for the Study of the Americas

Louis A. Pérez, Jr.

Director, ISA; J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History
Phone: (919) 962-6880

Louis A. Pérez, Jr. is the J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History and the new Director of ISA. His most recent books include On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture, winner of the 2000 Bolton-Johnson Prize, The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography, Winds of Change: Hurricanes and the Transformation of Nineteenth-Century Cuba, winner of the 2001 George Perkins Marsh Prize, and To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society, winner of the 2007 Elsa Goveia Prize. Pérez’s principal research interests center on the nineteenth and twentieth-century Caribbean, with a research emphasis on Cuba. Contact Louis Pérez

Beatriz Riefkohl Muñiz

Associate Director, Director of Undergraduate Studies, and FLAS Coordinator, ISA
Phone: (919) 962-2418

Beatriz Riefkohl Muñiz joined ISA in 2005 after nearly a decade working to strengthen Latin American studies at the University of Chicago and Yale University. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degree in Anthropology. At ISA, she advises students on academic and funding opportunities, manages and develops grant and endowment programs, and oversees the activities of the UNC and Duke Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She volunteers with local organizations working to provide opportunities to Latin American immigrants. Contact Beatriz Riefkohl Muñiz

Sharon Mújica

Yucatec Maya Program Director, UNC and Duke Consortium
Phone: (919) 962-2414.

Sharon Mújica received a certificate in Latin American Studies from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and a B.A. from UNC-CH. She serves as a member of the Steering Committee of the national Consortium of Latin American and Caribbean Studies Programs (CLASP) and chairs the CLASP Committee on Language Teaching. In her years with the Institute and the UNC-Duke Consortium, Sharon has traveled frequently to Mexico and also to Peru, Belize, Cuba, Central America, and Brazil. She lived in Spain for two years and in Mexico for twenty years. Sharon has published materials and curated exhibits on Mexican culture and Yucatec Maya culture and language. Contact Sharon Mújica

Hannah Gill

Assistant Director, ISA
Phone: (919) 962-5453

Hannah Gill is an applied anthropologist with a specialization in Latin American/Caribbean migration studies. She joins ISA from the UNC Center for Global Initiatives, where she has worked as a Rockefeller Postdoctoral Scholar, Research Associate, and Adjunct Professor since 2004. At CGI, she co-authored the book, "Going to Carolina de Norte, Narrating Mexican migrant experiences." Dr. Gill’s course "Latin American Immigrant Perspectives: Ethnography and Action" involves an APPLES alternative spring break trip to Guanajuato, Mexico each year. She received a DPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, England in 2004. She is a native of North Carolina and an alumnus of UNC Chapel Hill. Contact Hannah Gill

Shelley Clarke

Business Manager, ISA
Phone: (919) 962-6879

Shelley Clarke received an A.A. from Inver Hills Community College in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. She has several years' experience in accounting. Shelley is responsible for departmental management--including travel requests, accounts receivable and payable, general accounting, and equipment and space--as well as other duties. Contact Shelley Clarke

LeAnne Disla

Outreach Coordinator, Carolina and Duke Consortium
LeAnne Disla joined the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University in August, 2008. She received her Ph.D. in Culture, Curriculum and Change from UNC Chapel Hill and her MS and BS degrees from Cornell University. She has worked extensively in public education, at the state and local level in North Carolina, New York and Mississippi. Within the Consortium, LeAnne coordinates outreach programs and events within public schools and community colleges. She lived in the Dominican Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer for a little over 2 years. Contact LeAnne Disla

Enver Casimir

Film Collection Assistant, ISA
Phone: (919) 843-8888

Enver Casimir completed his doctoral studies in Latin American and Caribbean history here at UNC in the spring of 2009. He received his B.A. in history from Harvard University in 1994 and his M.A. in history from UNC in 2005. His primary research interests center on the 19th and 20th century Caribbean and the experience and significance of race in the Americas. His dissertation, which he defended in May 2009, uses the career of Afro-Cuban boxer Kid Chocolate as a lens to examine the ways in which sport and race related to Cuban nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s. Contact Enver Casimir

Rachel Hynson

Research Assistant and Lecturer, ISA
Phone: (919) 966-1484

Rachel Hynson is a Ph.D. student in the History Department at UNC. She received her B.A. in Spanish and Women's Studies from the University of Kansas in 2005, and completed her M.A. at UNC in 2009 with a focus on social deviance in nineteenth-century Cuba. Her current project explores gender and female activism in Cuba during the first half of the twentieth century. Contact Rachel Hynson