Luis Zavala is part of the University of Michigan Graduate Student Cohort of the Summer 2021 U-M/UPR Curriculum Design Program. Learn more about Zavala and why he chose to apply to this year’s program below!
Luis Zavala
Luis Zavala is a Ph.D. student in Epidemiology at the University of Michigan, whose research focused on understanding the role of e-cigarettes and other new tobacco products on patterns of smoking and tobacco use disparities in Mexico and the United States. He is also working on a project that estimates the patterns of flavored tobacco use in the context of multiple
products (single dual and poly tobacco use) and at the intersection of multiple identities (age, sex, income, and race/ethnicity) among the U.S population. Finally, He is also working in a COVID-19 research study at the University of Michigan that is documenting the sociodemographic inequities in COVID-19 treatment and the differential social impact of COVID-19 on different communities in the state of Michigan.
I applied to UM/UPR Summer 2021 Curriculum Program on Global Health in Puerto Rican Classroom to be able to interact with professors from Puerto Rico. Furthermore, given my training in Epidemiology and my affinity for Global Health topics, I consider that my participation and my experience will be beneficial for me and the project. Finally, I also applied to share my research by doing a pre-recording lecture on global health in which I used data from my research on tobacco in Mexico.
– Luis Zavala on his decision to apply to the 2021 Summer Program
Arina Vlasova is part of the University of Michigan Graduate Student Cohort of the Summer 2021 U-M/UPR Curriculum Design Program. Learn more about Vlasova and why she chose to apply to this year’s program below!
Arina Vlasova
Arina Vlasova is a graduate student in the Masters in International and Regional Studies Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (MIRS-REEES) program. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Saint Petersburg State University (Russia). Her research interests include health behavior and health education, sociology of the family, and sociology of education with Russia, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe as her regions of focus. Besides having experience working as
an RA in the fields of her interest, Arina has worked as a student services assistant at an international NGO and as a patient coordinator at a fertility clinic.
I applied to the U-M/UPR Summer 2021 Curriculum Design Program due to my long-term interest in the variety of topics related to global health–specifically, sexuality education. I also had a great interest in curriculum design. It was an amazing learning experience: while I did have some curriculum-building experience in the past, none of it was relevant to discussing global health issues in secondary school classrooms. Hopefully, I was able to make a meaningful contribution to the project. I am looking forward to seeing how our collective learning experience will be implemented in practice!
– Arina Vlasova on her decision to apply to the 2021 Summer Program
Colin Garon is part of the University of Michigan Graduate Student Cohort of the Summer 2021 U-M/UPR Curriculum Design Program. Learn more about Garon and why he chose to apply to this year’s program below!
Colin Garon
Colin Garon is a doctoral student in Anthropology and History at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on medicine in China, from the late Ming to the present day. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in the history of science, he spent a year auditing classes and shadowing clinics at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. Outside of research and teaching, Colin enjoys singing in the university’s choirs and taking long, meandering walks.
My teaching career started in Zoom school, leading undergraduate discussions on the history of medicine in the United States while a pandemic raged around us. Alongside my students, I found myself struggling with longstanding questions that COVID rendered even more urgent: In times like these, how do we strike a balance between something like ‘freedom’ (however defined) and our obligations to each other? How do the medical practices we rely on to survive intersect with systems of oppression that make survival more difficult for some while privileging others? From my own experience studying US history in high school, I knew that these conversations can and should start before students arrive at college. So, I was excited for the opportunity to join the UM-UPR Curriculum Design Program and learn from experienced and passionate high school teachers while brainstorming curriculum that tackles the difficult questions raised by our COVID times.
– Colin Garon on his decision to apply to the 2021 Summer Program
Marie Montás is part of the University of Michigan Graduate Student Cohort of the Summer 2021 U-M/UPR Curriculum Design Program. Learn more about Montás and why she chose to apply to this year’s program below!
Marie Montás
Marie is a Fulbright Scholar and a Master of Public Health student in Global Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Originally from the Dominican Republic, she completed her B.S. in Economics at PUCMM of Santo Domingo and her Postgraduate degree in Pharmacoeconomics at Universität Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona. Marie is passionate about social issues, especially related to public health. She wants to dedicate her life to applying evidence-based and cost-effective strategies to prevent inefficient and inequitable healthcare outcomes in emerging countries. Marie has vast experience
working in the public health and social security sector of her home country and Latin American. She is currently working in research healthcare policy for various organizations. Her research interests are driven by how healthcare payment models, purchasing strategies, and pharmaceutical policies affect the health system and society.
Three principal reasons motivated me to participate in the U-M/UPR Summer 2021 Curriculum Design Program on Global Health in Puerto Rican Classrooms:
1) My research focus is on Global Health, so I was thrilled to share my work in the area while having a positive impact. Illustrating how the Dominican Republic is mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of the government in a sanitary crisis looks relevant to the momentum.
2) As a fellow Caribbean, I felt the responsibility to collaborate with my Puerto Rican peers. I am aware that the Caribbean is neglected in social and educational policies––especially in public health, finding good educational resources can be tedious. I wanted to contribute to making a change.
3) I trust that societal transformation begins with educational improvement. I understand the urge to enhance learning and provide better tools for our students in the classrooms––this program allowed an opportunity.
– Marie Montás on her decision to apply to the 2021 Summer Program
Dr. Amílcar Matos Moreno is part of the University of Michigan Graduate Student Cohort of the Summer 2021 U-M/UPR Curriculum Design Program. Learn more about Dr. Matos Moreno and why he chose to apply to this year’s program below!
Amílcar Matos Moreno
Dr. Amílcar Matos Moreno is a Social Epidemiologist and Biostatistician. He completed his master’s in public health in Biostatistics from the University of Puerto Rico and his Ph.D. in Social Epidemiology from the University of Michigan. He has worked as a lead biostatistician and survey data analyst for numerous governmental and private organizations like Veterans’ Affairs Healthcare System, Iniciativa Comunitaria, Children’s Mott Hospital at the University of Michigan, among others. His research interests focus on applying multilevel regression models to study aging in the Puerto Rican population. His main research interests are driven by how social dynamics and psychosocial measures impact the health and well-being of older adults residing in
Puerto Rico, specifically those left behind by migrant adult children. Also, Dr. Matos Moreno has been funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), among others. Dr. Matos Moreno has a particular interest in depression, social isolation, cardiovascular diseases, social support, disability, and mortality in late life.
I applied to this program because I understand how hard it is for Puerto Rican educators to find intellectual resources outside of Puerto Rico. Being born and raised in Puerto Rico, I know the importance of conducting a program like this one for Puerto Rican students. I wanted to put my expertise to good use and what better way than helping young Puerto Rican students and educators.
– Dr. Amílcar Matos Moreno on his decision to apply to the 2021 Summer Program
Participants of the U-M/UPR Curriculum Design Program kicked off Summer 2021 activities with a virtual introduction on Tuesday, July 6
For the past seven years, the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies (LACS) has led the charge in the University of Michigan–University of Puerto Rico Outreach Collaboration, a program with the goal of providing opportunities to globalize middle and high school level curriculum. U-M students, staff, and faculty traveled to San Juan for the last in-person event of this program in March of 2020, where an audience of Puerto Rican middle and high school teachers attended a conference consisting of pedagogical workshops, lectures, and professional development opportunities. In years prior, teachers from Puerto Rico have come to Michigan for these collaborative projects as well.
“Obviously, this year we are not able to do that,” LACS Program Manager Alana Rodriguez relayed to the attendees of the virtual launch party on July 6 for this year’s reimagining of the program: The Summer 2021 Curriculum Design Program focusing on Global Health. Like countless other efforts in the II, the usual in-person convening of this year’s U-M/UPR program has shifted to a virtual sphere, which, combined with a theme that cuts across multiple schools, has found a silver lining of being “the largest and most interdisciplinary cohort of graduate students yet”. The U-M cohort consists of 17 graduate students from the social sciences, School of Social Work, School of Nursing, School of Public Health, School of Medicine, and the II.
Alana Rodriguez, Program Manager, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, talks about the Michigan –Puerto Rico Curriculum Development Program on July 6 over Zoom.
The U-M/UPR Summer 2021 Curriculum Design Program will pair two or three U-M graduate students with one PR teacher to create and globalize a lesson plan focusing on a topic around global health that the teacher would like to incorporate into their curriculum this coming academic year. In addition to providing their research skills and resources to the teachers, the U-M students will also be recording a 10-15 min pedagogical talk on their area of expertise. The teams will be meeting and designing their lesson plans together throughout the month of July, with the program culminating in a virtual event to be held in Spanish on August 7, 2021. There, the teachers will have the opportunity to present their lessons as they will do so to their incoming students.
“While we’ve all experienced many pandemic challenges, we also recognize that our K-12 teacher audience has been disproportionately affected, having had to quickly create virtual lessons and find ways to reach students with varying levels of access to the technology and tools that they needed to ensure a fulfilling academic year.”
– Alana Rodriguez, Program Manager, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Attendees of the July 6 virtual introduction to the U-M/UPR Summer 2021 Curriculum Design Program.
On top of being interdisciplinary educators and researchers, this cohort is also full of musicians, dancers, and singers. Before diving into how to create engaging lesson plans at the virtual introduction of the program, Darin Stockdill, Instructional and Program Design Coordinator for CEDER, asked participants to introduce themselves and to include something important to who they are outside of their titles. “After hearing about everyone’s interests, it seems like a singing and dancing party would have been quite enjoyable for us all, so hopefully that can happen soon!” Alana announced before closing out the event.
Darin Stockdill, Instructional and Program Design Coordinator for CEDER, gives a presentation on the purpose of the U-M/UPR Program and how to structure an engaging lesson plan.
This Summer 2021 program is dedicated to the co-founder of the U-M/UPR Collaborative Project, Dr. Juan R. Hernández García, who unexpectedly passed away in February of this year. Professor Hernández had ties to both institutions as a Professor of history at the University of Puerto Rico and an alumnus of the University of Michigan, having received his Ph.D. in history from there in 2007. The program and subsequent community it fosters would not exist without him, and though it is difficult to continue the program without Professor Hernández on both personal and professional levels, LACS and its collaborative partners are keeping his memory close in dedicating their efforts in the program to him. One of Dr. Hernandez’s closest mentors, Dr. Mayra Rosario Urrutia, Professor of History at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras and author of La Epidemia Reinante, will give the keynote address at this culminating event.
This year’s program is dedicated to Dr. Juan R. Hernández García.
“Juan, we just love him forever, so thank you for that Alana. He means the world to all of us.”
– Wilmarie Rivera Perez, Maestra de Historia at Escuela Especializada en Matemáticas, Ciencias y Tecnología”
We are thrilled to introduce the UPR Teacher and U-M Graduate Student Cohorts for the Summer 2021 Curriculum Design Program on Global Health, and look forward to seeing the collaborative globalized lesson plans that the teams will create!
Puerto Rico Teacher Cohort:
Yolymar Ortiz Villegas, Escuela Adela Brenes Texidor
Amanda Silva Acosta, The School of San Juan
Wilmarie Rivera Pérez, Escuela Especializada en Matemáticas, Ciencias y Tecnología
Awilda Rosa Santiago, Escuela Secundaria de la Universidad de Puerto Rico
Charlotte Cabello Rivera, Grand Rapids Public Schools (Spanish-speaking classroom)
Cesamil Irizarry Vélez, The School of San Juan
Zuan Suarez Santiago, Escuela del Deporte de San Juan
University of Michigan Graduate Student Cohort:
Sheng Zou, Chinese Studies (II)
Marie Chantel Montás, Global Health Management & Policy
Paloma Contreras, Anthropology
Daniel Iddrisu, African Studies (II)
Emma Willoughby, Health Management & Policy
Andrea Elmore, Social Work
Amílcar Matos-Moreno, Epidemiology
Linda Camaj Deda, Medicine
Arina Vlasova, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (II)
Jennifer Inloes, Nursing
Areli Balderrama, Health Behavior & Health Education
Luis Zavala Arciniega, Epidemiology
Sydney Fine, Epidemiology
Colin Garon, Anthropology & History
Lilia Popova, Medicine, Epidemiology
Maya Zreik, Middle Eastern & North African Studies (II)
Katherine Downs, Middle Eastern & North African Studies (II)
Finally, this program would not be possible without the dedication of wonderful support staff. Alana gave special acknowledgments to Jennifer Sierra and Javier de Jesus Astacio, both graduate students at the University of Michigan who started working on the U-M/UPR project as translators in 2020. They were first hired to translate the educational resources created through this program from English to Spanish for use in Puerto Rican and other Spanish-speaking classrooms. After the passing of Dr. Hernández, Jennifer and Javier stepped in with little notice to assist and took on new roles in order to support the coordination of this program. “I’m so grateful to them for pivoting from their translation work to ensure that the program lives on,” Alana noted. She also acknowledged Gabrielle Graves from the International Institute, who is working on financial logistics and public relations, and Karin Tice and Amy McNulty, program evaluators from a local woman-owned business, Formative Evaluation Research Associates.
Alana Rodriguez recognizes the support staff for this year’s summer program.
Professor Juan Hernández García passed away on February 25, 2021
It is with profound sadness that the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Department of History convey news of the death of Juan R. Hernández García yesterday, February 25, 2021. Professor Hernández received his Ph.D. in History at the University of Michigan in 2007 and joined the faculty at the University of Puerto Rico, Recinto Río Piedras in 2008. Throughout his career at UPR he retained very close ties with UM, returning regularly as a much beloved Visiting Lecturer for LACS and History, and serving as a foundational figure in establishing and co-coordinating the UM-UPR Outreach Collaboration, now in its eighth year.
Professor Hernández built a truly special community of scholars from UPR and UM. He worked tirelessly to extend our collaboration’s efforts to benefit educators of all levels in Michigan and Puerto Rico and he has touched so many lives, directly and indirectly, through this important work. Professor Hernández was a kind and compassionate mentor who delighted his students each year with his passion for teaching through animated storytelling alongside probing analysis. His generosity, humor, and fierce commitment to collaboration and intellectual exchange has left the UM community forever enriched by his many contributions and we deeply mourn his untimely departure.
We extend our heartfelt condolences to Juan’s family, friends, and many loved ones around the world. We join in solidarity with the University of Puerto Rico, Recinto Río Piedras in commemorating Professor Hernández’s contributions to our shared community.
Jay Cook
Victoria Langland
Alana Rodriguez
DECESO DEL DR. JUAN HERNÁNDEZ GARCÍA, CATEDRÁTICO AUXILIAR DEL DEPARTAMENTO DE HISTORIA DE LA FACULTAD DE HUMANIDADES
The International Institute delegation is in Puerto Rico gearing up for the 4th annual collaborative symposium beginning tomorrow, May 3! Check back at 9:30 am (EST) for the live-stream link. The video will be hosted on this page: goo.gl/zYgjHE
La delegación del Instituto Internacional de la Universidad de Michigan está en Puerto Rico preparándose para el cuarto simposio colaborativo que comienza mañana, 3 de mayo! Para los que no pueden asistir a la conferencia, pueden ver la grabación en vivo comenzando a las 9:30 AM (EST) entrando a esta página de web: goo.gl/zYgjHE
Announcing the theme for the2018 UPR-UM Symposium: “Political Tensions and Identity in a Globalized World”
Location: University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, San Juan, PR
Date: May 3-4, 2018
We are calling on graduate students from the University of Michigan, working from any discipline, methodologies, or perspective, in any part of the world or historical contexts, to present on the theme of political tensions and identity in a globalized world. The objective of this symposium is to incorporate the concepts of political tension, questions of identity, and globalization into academic curriculum and teaching models at the university and K-12 school level. We seek graduate students who will present their research and propose ways to incorporate that research into K-12 school classrooms.
Selected proposals will be considered for full or partial travel funding to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
