FACULTY
Brigid Starkey | Felipe Filomeno
Tania Lizarazo | Zareen Taj
STAFF
Grace Castle
Brigid Starkey, Ph.D.
Dr. Starkey is a Principal Lecturer of Political Science at UMBC and the Director of the Global Studies program. She teaches in the areas of foreign policy, international negotiation, the Middle East, and teaching and learning strategies in the college classroom.
She has published articles in such journals as Simulation and Gaming, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, and International Studies Notes. Dr. Starkey is the co-author with Mark Boyer and Jonathan Wilkenfeld of International Negotiation in a Complex World (5th Edition, forthcoming, 2022). Dr. Starkey is in FAB 558. (Contact)
Felipe Filomeno, Ph.D.
Dr. Felipe A. Filomeno is Associate Professor of Political Science and Global Studies at UMBC, he is also the new Associate Director of the Center for Social Science Scholarship. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Johns Hopkins University, where he was a Fulbright scholar. His current research investigates the local dimension of immigration politics and policy, with a focus on the Latin American diaspora in Baltimore. His latest book – Theories of Local Immigration Policy – was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017.
Dr. Filomeno is in PUP 320 (Contact)
Tania Lizarazo, Ph.D.
Dr. Lizarazo received her Ph.D. in Latin American Literature and Cultures, with emphases in Feminist Theory & Research and Studies in Performance & Practice from the University of California, Davis in 2015. Her research interests include digital storytelling, Latin American cultural studies, transnational feminisms and memory studies.
Her recent digital storytelling projects are a collaboration with the Gender Committee of a farmers’ organization from the Colombian Pacific and a collaboration with members of farm working communities in California’s Central Valley.
Zareen Taj
Ms. Taj is a visiting lecturer in the Global Studies Program for the 2022-23 academic year. She is a women’s and human rights activist, filmmaker, and author from Afghanistan.
In 2004, she became the first Afghan woman to visit the five largest Hazara massacre sites during her work to interview survivors and produce her thesis and a video documentary. Her 2008 Master’s thesis was the first academic writing focused on Hazara women’s identities and oppression in Afghanistan. Her work appears in the short film Oppression of Hazara in Afghanistan (2008), her book Journey to Empowerment: Women After the Taliban. In 2022, her documentary film Our Face Tells premiered, focusing attention on the oppression of the Hazara ethnicity in Afghanistan and the experiences of dual oppression faced by Hazara women.
Zareen is a current PhD student in UMBC’s Language, Literacy and Culture program(Contact)
Grace Castle
Grace joined the Global Studies program staff in the Autumn of 2017 as full-time Academic Advisor and currently serves as Program Coordinator. She formerly worked as an International Academic Advisor at Laureate International Education, Inc. Prior to that, Grace worked for several years supporting American students as they studied abroad in England, where she was completing postgraduate work. She holds a B.A. in Classical Language and Civilizations from Loyola University Maryland and an M.A. in Greek and Roman Archaeology from Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. Grace has a passion for international educational experience and is devoted to supporting students in achieving their academic goals. Her office is in FAB 550.