Fellows

María del Mar González-González, Faculty Fellow and Co-Convener

Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Art & Design, College of Arts & Humanities

Dr. María del Mar González-González received her PhD in Art History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she specialized in modern and contemporary art history with a focus on Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latinx visual culture. She holds an MA in Art History from Indiana University Bloomington and a BA in Visual Arts from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. She teaches courses on global modern and contemporary art and visual culture, with an emphasis on the Americas, including Latin America, the Caribbean, and U.S. Latinx contexts. Her areas of interest include socially engaged practices, art biennials, the history of collecting and museums, and reprographic arts.

Joseph Mulligan, Faculty Fellow and Co-Convener

Assistant Professor, Department of World Languages & Cultures, College of Arts & Humanities

Joseph Mulligan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of World Languages & Literatures at Weber State University, where he teaches Spanish language courses as well as seminars on Latin American cultural history, literature, and translation. Informed by the methodologies of conceptual history, discourse analysis, and the sociology of cultural forms, his research explores networks of cultural production, social movements, and political thought in the Andes, the Caribbean, and Mexico during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is a specialist in the Latin American Avant-Garde and has translated multiple volumes of writings by César Vallejo. Dr. Mulligan received his MA and PhD in the Hispanic Literatures and Cultures track of the Romance Studies Department at Duke University.

Carlos Eduardo Aviña, Student Fellow, Fall 2025

Carlos Eduardo Aviña is a Social Science Composite Teaching undergrad with a deep interest in Latin American Studies. Currently with an Associates of Art degree, Carlos is especially interested in the Cold War Era and how U.S. foreign policy shaped the trajectory of the Civil War in El Salvador. His interest in overlooked and misunderstood periods of Latin American history has directed his research toward the stories of marginalized people and what is known as history from below. Carlos has also worked on the Celebración de Mariposas Graduation committee and is a proud member of the Phi Alpha Theta National History Honors Society.

Faith Bryce, Student Fellow, Fall 2025

Faith Bryce is a fourth-year undergraduate student at Weber State University with a major in History Teaching and a dual minor in Spanish and Latin American Studies. She has primarily studied Latin American History and history of the American west. Her areas of interest include the history of social movements, protests, and demonstrations. As a LASCOLAB Student Fellow, Faith is working on research for her undergraduate thesis on the clandestine independence movements in Puerto Rico in the 1970s and 1980s. She seeks to uncover strategies activists used to interact with the US government and the ideologies that motivated them to do so.

Sara Bueno, Student Fellow, Fall 2025

Sara Bueno is a senior Psychology major with a minor in Latin American Studies at Weber State University and a Student Fellow in the Latin American Studies Co-Lab (LASCoLab). Her current research examines the looting of Peruvian libraries during the War of the Pacific and its historical, cultural, and intellectual significance. She contributes through translation, bibliographic research, archival work, community interviews, mapping, and critical writing.

Luna Malagón, Student Fellow, Fall 2025

Luna Malagón is an undergraduate student at Weber State University, majoring in Spanish Translation with a minor in International Relations. Her academic interests include literature, history, and languages. As a LASCoLab Student Fellow, Luna works with Dr. González and Dr. Mulligan, and conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of literature and visual cultures on the origins of violence and memory studies in the context of Colombia. Her work seeks to explore how violence became a structuring component of Colombian society and why the topic of violence is often excluded from major debates in the public sphere.

Aislyn Whitney, Student Fellow, Fall 2025

Aislyn Whitney is a third year student at Weber State University, studying as an Art major and Art History minor. Her academic interests focus on political art in Latin America and among U.S. Latinx artists. She is working for the LASCo-Lab as a research assistant under Dr. Maria del Mar Gonzalez. She is contributing to the development of a comprehensive bibliography for Dr. González’s manuscript, which explores the San Juan Print Biennial and its subsequent San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial as symbols of Puerto Rican national identity. There are three primary areas of research: the administration, the artists and curators and the public, as well as the political reception of the Biennial.

Spencer Young, Student Fellow, Fall 2025

Spencer Young is a fourth-year undergraduate who will be graduating in spring 2026 with a major in Spanish and a minor in Linguistics. In addition to human language, their research interests include sociology, history, political economics, and geography. In the LASCo-Lab, Spencer is exploring social movements and experimental forms of governance in 20th-century Uruguay, with a special focus on radical politics and the proposal of leaderless movements.