I am an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Affiliate Faculty in the U.S. Latinx Studies Program here at Iowa State. I completed my PhD at Vanderbilt University in the Spring of 2016. In regards to my current research, I identify broadly as a caribeñista and digital humanist. I have a forthcoming book manuscript, titled Mapping Hispaniola: Third Space in Dominican and Haitian Literature, that considers the ways Dominicans, Haitians and their US diasporas have imagined the physical and metaphorical border(s) that divide the island of Hispaniola. I’m also currently working on co-editing an anthology, alongside historian Edward Paulino, titled The Border of Lights Reader: Bearing Witness to Genocide in the Dominican Republic. I have recently published on Caribbean and Latinx literature in journals including Hispania, Chiricú, Confluencia and Caribe. Further, I am interested in and have an active research agenda in the field of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and this academic year (2018-2019) I am an Iowa Campus Compact Engaged Research Fellow. My research informs my teaching and in the classroom at Iowa State I have taught everything from a senior seminar on contemporary Caribbean Literature to Spanish for Business and Textual and Media Analyses. I also teach in the U.S. Latinx Studies Program; I routinely teach the Introduction to Latinx Studies course (USLS 211) as well a new course titled “Latinas/os and the Iowa Immigration Experience” that has a required community engagement component. Last but not least, I am the co-director of an LAS Global Seminar titled “Education and Environmental Sustainability in the Dominican Republic: Learning Through Community Engagement” and co-founder of Border of Lights (borderoflights.org).