FACULTY
Felipe Filomeno | Brigid Starkey
Tania Lizarazo | Zareen Taj
STAFF
ADVISORY BOARD
Felipe Filomeno (Political Science) | Brigid Starkey (Political Science) | Tania Lizarazo (Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication) | Omar Ka (Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication) | Brian Van Wyck (History) | Jayshree Jani (Social Work) | Kyung-Eun (Kay) Yoon (Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication)
Felipe Filomeno, Ph.D., Director
Dr. Felipe A. Filomeno is a higher education leader experienced in global education, campus-community engagement, deliberative dialogues, and research capacity development. He is an associate professor of political science and global studies at UMBC. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Johns Hopkins University, where he was a Fulbright scholar. His research investigates human development in the context of Latin America and the Latin American diaspora in the United States. He is the author of Christian Cosmopolitanism: Faith Communities Talk Immigration (Temple University Press, 2024), Theories of Local Immigration Policy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and Monsanto and Intellectual Property in South America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Contact Dr. Filomeno for questions about the Global Studies Program, his courses, and research mentorship opportunities in immigration, Latin American, and Latino studies. You can find him in FAB551. (Contact)
Brigid Starkey, Ph.D.
Brigid Starkey, Ph.D.Dr. Starkey is a Principal Lecturer of Political Science at UMBC. 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, 2022). Dr. Starkey is in PUP 320. (Contact)
Tania Lizarazo, Ph.D.
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. She is also the author of the book Post-Conflict Utopias: Everyday Survival in Choco Colombia by the University of Illinois Press.
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.