Lassen Fellowships in Latin American Studies, 2013-2014

Daniela Barba Sánchez (Politics)

Daniela Barba Sánchez

Daniela is a doctoral student in Politics and Social Policy at Princeton University. She earned a B.A. in International Relations from El Colegio de México and a M.A. in Comparative Politics from NYU. Prior to beginning her graduate studies, she worked in the public and nonprofit sectors in Mexico, in the areas of civic education and government accountability. She is interested in government accountability, political inequality, and civil-military relations.

Andres Lajous Loaeza (Sociology)

Andres Lajous Loaeza

Andrés Lajous earned his master’s in city planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and B.A. in political science and international relations at CIDE, Mexico City. Before coming to Princeton, Andrés worked as a journalist and editor in Mexico City. Previously, he participated actively in Mexican politics through a short-lived political party. His main areas of interest are political sociology and urban studies. He is particularly interested in state-formation, institutions and institutional capacity, violence, and Latin America.

Jessica Mack (History)

Jessica Mack

Jessica Mack earned the B.A. in history from Wesleyan University and has studied at the Universidad de Chile and the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico. Her research interests include public historical memory and its intersections with civil society movements and democratic citizenship. Prior to beginning graduate studies, Mack worked at the Social Science Research Council on a program that supports research related to drug policy, citizen security, and democratic governance throughout Latin America. She has previously worked as a consultant in capacity building for civil society organizations in Mexico City.

William Heath Pearson (Anthropology)

Pearson earned the B.A. in communication studies from Huntington College and an M.Div. from Princeton Seminary. During his Ph.D., he plans to undertake comparative, ethnographic research in two sites: the U.S. and Brazil. His primary interests were formed through extensive research in race and incarceration, and a variety of personal experiences. The ways in which persons, families, and neighborhoods are reconstituted by the State’s policing and imprisoning of non-white citizens; and how emotions work to shape the surfaces of individual and collective bodies, will be key focal points in his ethnographic research which will be undertaken with professional US-Brazilian photographer, Jeremiah Wilson.