I hold the post of Lecturer Above the Bar in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. I rejoined UCC in 2023, having worked as Assistant Professor in Latin American Studies and Intercultural Communication at Trinity College Dublin (2021–23), where I co-created and coordinated the MPhil, Diploma and Certificate in Applied Intercultural Communications. Previously, I led interdisciplinary research as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the SFI Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine research and innovation (MaREI), at the Environmental Research Institute, UCC. I completed a PhD in Arts and Hispanic Studies at UCC while working as Catalan Lectora/Language Demonstrator and Assistant Lecturer (2015–19). I completed a Master’s in Communication and Cultural Studies (2014) and a BA(Hons) in Cultural Communication/Journalism (2013) after studying most of my Licenciatura/BA in Journalism at Universidad de La Habana.

I work at the interplay between Cultural and Media Studies, the Environmental Humanities and Intercultural Communication, with a regional focus on the Caribbean, Central America, and their US diasporas, in dialogue with Catalan, Irish and other European cultures. My first monographic book, titled Essays on Transculturation and Catalan-Cuban Intellectual History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), reactivated unexplored archival material from the journal La Nova Catalunya to propose new interpretations of Fernando Ortiz’s concept of ‘transculturation’ considering the counterpoint between sugar and tobacco, as well as between community-making discourses and processual identities in the Caribbean. My second monographic book, titled Hurricane Culture: for an Eco-Poetics of Relations beyond the Hispanic Caribbean and under contract with University of Toronto Press, explores a continuum of hurricane culture in the Atlantic Hurricane Belt, a region that includes the Caribbean, Central America and the US South Atlantic states. The book explores a diversity of transmedia practices and cultural products, from Catalan Jesuits’ first meteorological texts written Havana, passing through Fernando Ortiz’s studies of Taino visual representations of storms, to ongoing forms of creative resistance to disasters through multidisciplinary arts and eco-poetry. Hurricane culture refers to the knowledges, beliefs, narratives, practices, and artistic expressions acquired and co-developed over the centuries by diverse peoples who have had to deal with storms and environmental degradation in the Atlantic Hurricane Belt, a region that includes the Caribbean, Central America and the US South Atlantic states. My published work traces an arc that includes subaltern epistemologies supporting climate justice and shaping responses to environmental challenges across diverse literatures, languages and cultures; Afro-descendant children and women’s environmental stewardship in support of food, biodiversity conservation and reproductive justice; as well as the relation between intercultural communication, intersectional perspectives, creative practice, and co-creation processes. I have published two books of poetry, and I approach eco-poetry as a research methodology that draws upon the specific tools of linguistic experimentation to contribute to knowledge-making.

I have designed, coordinated and delivered a wide range of modules on Caribbean, Latin American, US Latinx and Iberian Cultures, the Environmental Humanities, Intercultural Communication, and Literary Translation, at undergraduate (UG), postgraduate (PG) and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) levels.

University College Cork (2023-present)

• UG Latin American and Caribbean Environmental Cultures in a Global Context (HS3059)
• UG Gender, Violence and Power in the US–Mexico Border (HS3054)
• UG US Latino Literatures (HS2046)
• UG Introduction to Spanish and Latin American Studies (team-taught module) (HS1030)
• UG Understanding Latin America (team-taught module) (HS2014)
• UG European Cultural Identities II (team-taught module) (LL3102)
• PG Understanding Latin America: Texts and Contexts (team-taught module) (HS5021)
• PG Genres in Translation (team-taught module) (LL6027)
• PG Migration and Culture (team-taught module) (LL6037)
• PG What Gets Lost: Poetry and Translation (team-taught module) (LL6039)
• PG WS Feminist Theory (team-taught module) (WS6002)
• PG Cultural Responses to Global Challenges in the Spanish-speaking World (team-taught module) (HS5017)

Trinity College Dublin (2021–23)

• UG Hispanic Texts II (SPU22102)
• PGIntroduction to Intercultural Communication (ICP11001)
• PG Communicating in A Culturally Diverse Workplace: A Practical Toolkit (ICP11011)
• PG Language, Culture and Communication (ICP11031)
• PG Multimodal Communication (ICP11042)
• PG Research Methods and Design (Online) (ICP11051)
• PGPhil. Literary Translation Portfolio (IT7003)
• CPD in Intercultural Communication for the Global Workplace (Online)

University College Cork (2015–19)

• UG Understanding Latin America (HS2014)
• UG Introduction to Spanish and Latin American Studies (team-taught module) (HS1030)
• UG Catalan Cultural Studies (HS3023)
• UG Business, Culture and Society in the Hispanic and Lusophone Worlds (team-taught module) (HS2008)
• UG European Cultural Identities II (team-taught module) (LL3102)
• UG Spanish Language modules (HS1101, HS1102, HS2102)
• UG Catalan Language and Culture modules (HS2022, HS2023, HS3022, HS3123)

Universitat de Girona (2013–14)

• UG Transformacions del món global [Global transformations] (team-taught module). Topics of this module included: new roles of media professionals and cultural entrepreneurship.

2019–20. Project 'Connecting People to Climate Change Action: Informing Participatory Frameworks for the National Dialogue on Climate Action’ (C-CHANGE), Environmental Protection Agency, (with Dr Marguerite Nyhan and Dr Barry O’Dwyer) (€100,000).

2024–25. Project ‘A Small-Island Eco-Archipelagic Poetics of Relations: Re-signifying Disasters from the Hispanic Caribbean’, Enterprise Ireland (€13,053).

2024. Project ‘Eco-Poetry as Activism, Climate Action and Interdisciplinary Knowledge-Making’, Future Humanities Institute Seed Funding, UCC (€3,000).

2022–23. Project ‘Hurricane Culture’, Trinity AHSS Benefaction Fund (€1,500).

2024. Trevor J. Dadson Publication Enhancement Fund, Association of Hispanists (AHGBI) (€500).

Magalí Belén Segovia, Thesis Title: 'Unravelling Irishness: gendered identities in diasporic Irish cultural printed press in early 20th-century Argentina'.

Flavia Pontes Espindola, Thesis Title: 'Place of Grito: Towards a Polyphonic Paradigm for the Study of Contemporary Literature in Brazil'.