Distinguished Graduate Fellows

Since 2012, the College of Arts and Sciences and the University of Miami Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas have awarded three distinguished fellowships every year to fund doctoral students in all areas of Latin American, Caribbean, Latino and Diasporic studies.

The fellows participate in the intellectual life of the institute while working on their own degree programs and dissertation projects.

2016-2017 Distinguished Graduate Fellows

Caitlin Brown
Caitlin is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. She holds a B.A. in Psychology and a B.A. in Comparative Literature & Society from Columbia University (2013). After a year teaching and doing research in Andorra through the Fulbright program, she earned her M.S. in Clinical Health Psychology from the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona in 2015. Caitlin’s research interests include sociocultural factors that influence the assessment and treatment of bilingual and bicultural individuals with schizophrenia. She is currently engaged in a project on multilingualism and serious mental illness, examining whether the language of clinical assessment (English or Spanish) impacts perceived symptom severity and effortful control in bilingual Hispanics with schizophrenia.
Matthew Davidson
Matthew is a second-year doctoral student in history and a Distinguished Fellow of the Miami Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas. His research focuses on U.S. Empire and public health in the Caribbean during the early twentieth century, and he is currently studying under the direction of Dr. Kate Ramsey. Matthew completed his M.A. from Trent University in Peterborough, Canada, where he wrote a thesis on the 1915-1934 occupation of Haiti. He was subsequently employed as the Coordinator of the Peterborough chapter of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group. Matthew has presented at a number of international conferences, has contributed book reviews and entries for various journals and projects, and has published articles in numerous magazines.
Yulia Vorobyeva

Yulia is a Ph.D. candidate in International Studies at the University of Miami. Originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, Yulia studied linguistics and translation at Herzen State Pedagogical University specializing in Spanish language. In 2007, she interned as a translator at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prior to her residence in Miami, Yulia received her Master’s degree in Spanish from the University of Northern Iowa where she worked as an instructor of Spanish. In 2011, she served as an intern at the United Nations Department of Political Affairs. Her research interests include drug trafficking and organized crime, with special focus on Latin America and Russia, civil-military relations, security studies, and terrorism. She is the author of a book chapter “Drugs as a National Security Threat: Securitization of Drugs in the U.S. Official Discourse,” in Bruce Bagley and Jonathan Rosen (eds.), Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime, and Violence in the Americas Today (University Press of Florida, 2015).