Main navigation
Main navigation
All faculty

Pinned content, custom sorted.
Amber Brian, PhD
Title/Position
Departmental Executive Officer
Associate Professor
Amber Brian is Associate Professor of Latin American literary and cultural studies and Chair of the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at the University of Iowa. Her primary areas of research are colonialism and historiography, Indigenous intellectual history, and translation studies.

Horacio Castellanos
Title/Position
Associate Professor
Horacio Castellanos Moya is a writer and a journalist from El Salvador. For two decades he worked as editor of news agencies, magazines and newspapers in Mexico, Guatemala and his own country. As a fiction writer, he was granted residencies in a program supported by the Frankfurt International Book Fair (2004-2006) and in the City of Asylum program in Pittsburgh (2006-2008).

Roxanna Curto, PhD
Title/Position
Associate Professor
Roxanna Curto is Associate Professor of French and Spanish at the University of Iowa. She received her PhD in French from Yale in 2008 and her AB in Romance Studies from Harvard in 2001.

Ana Esther Fernández
Title/Position
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Ana E. Fernández Bravo has been teaching at the University of Iowa for more than 20 years.

Denise Filios, PhD
Title/Position
Associate Professor
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Study Abroad Advisor
Denise K. Filios is an Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa. Her current research studies the Camino de Santiago and other medieval-based long-distance walking routes and cultural itineraries in Spain.

Brian Gollnick, PhD
Title/Position
Associate Professor
Director, Latin American Studies Program
Brian Gollnick works on modern Mexican and Latin American cultural history from a perspective broadly influenced by the thinking of Antonio Gramsci.

Becky Gonzalez, PhD
Title/Position
Assistant Professor
Honors Advisor
Multilingual Syntax Lab Director
Becky Gonzalez is a linguist specializing in multilingual language acquisition. She works in the area of syntax, with a focus on argument structure, and is especially interested in the factors (linguistic and non-linguistic) that influence linguistic outcomes in different types of multilinguals.

Alexis Jimenez, PhD
Title/Position
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Alexis Jimenez is an Assistant Professor of Instruction within the field of Spanish at the University of Iowa.

Rachel Klevar, PhD
Title/Position
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Director of Curriculum
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Rachel Klevar is the supervisor of the GE CLAS Core elementary Spanish courses and teaches a wide variety of face-to-face and online Spanish classes.

Pilar Marcé, PhD
Title/Position
Associate Professor of Instruction
Dr. Pilar Marcé is an Associate Professor of Instruction, who specializes in Spanish for Specific Purposes (SSP).

Luis Martín-Estudillo, PhD
Title/Position
Professor and Collegiate Scholar
Director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies
Luis Martín-Estudillo is Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa, specializing in modern and contemporary Spanish cultural and intellectual history and criticism.

Ana Merino, PhD
Title/Position
Adjunct Professor
Ana Merino is an Adjunct Professor of Hispanic Studies and 2016 Collegiate Scholar. In 2009, Merino left her position at Dartmouth College to create the Spanish MFA program at the University of Iowa. She was its director since her foundation in March 2011 until December 2018. Between 2001-2011 she was a Member of the ICAF (International Comic Arts Forum) Executive Committee; and between 2004 and 2014 Directors Board Member at The Center for Cartoon Studies.

Kristine Muñoz, PhD
Title/Position
Professor
Global Health Studies Director
Dr. Kristine Muñoz's research and theory are centered in the ethnography of speaking based on fieldwork in Colombia. She works on topics related to peace education and health humanities, specifically the use of health narratives in teaching and publicly engaged scholarship of health care and caregiving.

Luis Muñoz, PhD
Title/Position
Associate Professor
Director of MFA in Spanish Creative Writing
Luis Muñoz was born in Granada, Spain. In his hometown, he directed the University of Granada’s Aula de Literatura (1992-2000), as well as the poetry magazine Hélice, from its founding until its closure (1992-2002). Between 2001 and 2012, he worked in Madrid as an advisor to the Residencia de Estudiantes.

Kathleen Newman, PhD
Title/Position
Associate Professor
Professor Newman’s research and teaching focuses on Latin American, Chicano, and Spanish cinemas as well as on theoretical questions regarding the relation between fictional narrative and politics and the relation between cinema and globalization.

Maricelle Pinto-Tomas, PhD
Title/Position
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Maricelle was born and raised in San José, Costa Rica. She joined the University of Iowa after receiving her PhD. She also works as a French and Spanish interpreter for the Iowa City Community School District. Her teaching responsibilities include Portuguese and Spanish languages, literatures, and cultures.

Claudia Pozzobon Potratz, PhD
Title/Position
Visiting Assistant Professor
Claudia Pozzobon Potratz has a MSc in Teaching/Learning Foreign Languages from la Universidad de los Andes in Mérida, Venezuela, and a PhD in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of Iowa. She is an experienced instructor and researcher in higher education and teacher education in both Venezuela and the US. She is skilled in biliteracy, multilingual literacy, and teaching Spanish as a heritage language (HL).

Ana M. Rodríguez-Rodríguez, PhD
Title/Position
Associate Professor
Graduate College Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Graduate Student Success
Ana M. Rodríguez-Rodríguez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa, specializing in Early Modern Spanish Literature.

Christine Shea, PhD
Title/Position
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
Christine Shea is interested in how age, experience and the native language sound system interact with the perception and production of a second language.
Suzanne Wedeking
Title/Position
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Suzanne has lived, worked, and studied abroad extensively. In addition to Iowa, she has lived in South America, Africa and Europe and speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French, with a considerable background in Arabic as well. She is associated with the Union des Français à l’Étranger and leads a weekly French conversation group through the organization. Her passion for her UI teaching is inextricably tied to her countless international experiences and linguistic endeavors. She deeply believes in the power of language and cross-cultural experiences and brings that frame of reference to the classroom each day, while inspiring students to follow a unique path of their own.

Giovanni Zimotti, PhD
Title/Position
Associate Professor of Instruction
Director of Spanish Language Instruction
Giovanni Zimotti is the Director of Spanish Language Instruction at the University of Iowa. His research interests include second language acquisition, technology for language acquisition, and pragmatics.