Dr. Fawwaz Habbal is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Physics at Harvard University and had served as the Executive Dean for Education and Research in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He has made substantial contributions to education, for which he was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering by the Korean Ulsan National Institute. Fawwaz is a systems thinker with an active interest in addressing open-ended human challenges, including improving the quality of life for the elderly, combating women's illiteracy, and, more recently, addressing suicide among children. He is a researcher and inventor, having created five startups in digital technologies. His industrial career included serving as Corporate Vice President for Research and Product Design and as a Senior Research and Engineering Fellow at Polaroid Corporation. Fawwaz also enjoys the arts, being a photographer, oil painter, and ceramicist with several shows.
Festival Director and Artistic Director of “Enjoy Jazz – International Festival for Jazz and More”, which he also founded in 1999. As the Representative of the Executive Mayor of Mannheim and his Special Advisor Global and UN Affairs he is responsible for the setup and strategic development of the new worldwide network/platform “Global Parliament of Mayors” (GPM) which was launched in 2016.
Peruvian lawyer, actor, film director, and politician. He served as Prime Minister of his country from March to September 2019. He was previously Minister of Culture, in 2017. The first Peruvian actor to be appointed Primer Minister, del Solar worked to enact the National Policy of Aboriginal Languages, Oral Tradition and Intercultural Approaches, and served during a period of political confrontation between the legislative and executive branches of government.
Tom Osborn graduated from Harvard College in 2020 with a BA degree in Psychology. His work focuses on interventions that provide young people in Sub Saharan Africa with an opportunity to secure important life outcomes. He has worked on mental health, academic and social support interventions through the Shamiri Institute. Tom plans to roll out Pre-Texts within the education system in Kenya in the next couple of years. Read more about Tom here.
He is an Afro-Colombian research scholar. With a BA in Linguistics and Literature and with a Ph. D in Social Anthropology. He's been avocated to study daily racism manifestation towards Afro-descendant communities in Colombia, Mexico and Belize. His focus areas include anti-racism through art practices, cultural policy, and cultural mobilisation among Afro-descendant groups. Additionally, he conducts research on language and cultures, speech, and daily communicative interactions. Currently, he is exploring the use of technology in social research through an approach called Digital Ethnography about the reception of anti-racist art practices in Colombia. He is also working on researching Afro-contemporary dance, anti-racist approach and black mobilisation in Colombia with black youth dancers in both rural and urban areas of Colombia.
Chiara Caiazzo is a PhD candidate in Contemporary Philosophy at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona), and a Fellow in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University during the 2024 Spring Term. Her dissertation, titled Can Art Spark a Revolution? Confronting Rancière’s Aisthesis, proposes a reexamination of Rancière’s politico-aesthetic theory through the lenses of philosophical hermeneutics. Exploring the intertwining of artistic and political practices is essential to reveal how cultural interventions can disclose absent emergencies and provide tools to navigate contemporary crises. She combines her research with her own artistic practice. Her work primarily focuses on experimental filmmaking, portrait photography, and digital illustration.
Francisco Alvarez is a Goldsmith, RCCHU, and Rose fellow student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, graduating in 2024 as a Master of Public Health. During his practicum in Ecuador, concerned by the high toll on mental health that the scale of violence and instability in Ecuador created, he ran several Pre-Text workshops raising mental health awareness in school settings. Through Pre-Text, he gathered more than 30 school directors, educators, and health professionals from private and public schools in his country to learn, explore, and destigmatize mental health care. Through this project, mental health awareness and promotion are propelled by the power of Pre-Text, transforming school classrooms into dynamic spaces that foster creativity, reduce anxiety, and enhance literacy.
Héctor earned his Bachelor's in Science at the University of Puerto Rico, specializing in biochemistry and molecular biology with a focus on neuroscience-related Alzheimer disease. Pursuing a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX, led a groundbreaking thesis project, developing a small molecule to protect brain cells. Since 2023, I have collaborated with Professor Doris Sommer, founder of Cultural Agents. Our collaboration has involved learning and implementing Pre-texts pedagogy in Spanish, leading to multiple successful initiatives impacting the Latino community in Boston and Puerto Rico.
Ian Koebner, PhD, MSc is a Research Affiliate within the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University and serves as a strategic consultant for Carnegie Hall on health and wellness programs. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor and the inaugural Director of Integrative Pain Management within the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of California, Davis (UCD). At UCD he was the recipient of a National Institutes of Health, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NIH-NCATS) Career Development Award for his project entitled, The Analgesic Museum: The Development and Effectiveness of Museum-Based Experiences to Reduce Social Isolation and Pain Among Individuals with Chronic Pain. He has over 20 years of experience developing and evaluating innovative strategic partnerships between the cultural and health sectors to improve individual, organizational, and community wellbeing.
Executive Director Executive Director of NEW AMERICANS MUSEUM INC, CEO of LCS Enterprises, partner Toltec Media Group. Post grad candidate: Harvard Kennedy School, MC-MPA program; advanced certifications in public policy, London School of Economics, Chicago Booth school of business.
Luis Reyes, Peruvian social anthropologist, assistant professor of Anthropology at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM). He obtained his doctorate at the National Museum of Brazil of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (MN/UFRJ). Reyes is also founder of the Seminar of Afro-Peruvian Studies at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and is a member of the Nucleus of Symmetrical Anthropology (NAnSi) at the MN/UFRJ and the Archeology of Science and Andean technologies at the UNMSM. 2023-2024 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Afro-Latin American Studies (Alari), Harvard University.
Trained in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, he has provided care on general medicine, cardiology, oncology, and critical care services. He also provided primary care in a community-based health center at Codman Square Health Center. He is now training in cardiovascular medicine. Beyond clinical medicine, he is experienced in practice redesign and driving health delivery innovation to provide patient-centric, equitable, and effective care. His background in business, policy, and law provides critical insights to understand and identify opportunities to transform systems of care to optimize for value and access, with a focus on underserved communities and populations.
Doris Sommer is Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies. She is founder of Cultural Agents, an Initiative at Harvard and an NGO dedicated to reviving the civic mission of the Humanities.
Alberto Vergara, Professor of the Academic Department of Social and Political Sciences at the Universidad del Pacífico and researcher at CIUP. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Montreal (Canada) with a doctoral scholarship from the Trudeau Foundation, a Master’s degree in Political Science from the Free University of Brussels (Belgium) and a Bachelor’s degree in Law from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He completed a post-doctorate at Harvard University (USA).
Currently, she is an academic in the Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication at the Faculty of Education, Social Sciences, and Humanities, University of La Frontera, Chile; and researcher of the Scientific and Technological Nucleus of Social Sciences and Humanities of the UFRO. Postdoctoral researcher in Latin American Literature at The Latin American Studies Program, University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, BC, Canada (2017). Ph.D. in Literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (2015), Professor of Spanish, Bachelor of Education, and Bachelor of Hispanic Literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (2002 and 2003). Diploma in University Strategic Management (University of Valparaíso, 2022).
PhD in English Studies and Associate Professor at the University of Oviedo. Responsible for the Research group on Translation and Discourse (TradDisc) and has published on advertising translation, on the reception of translations and on multilingualism and strangeness. She was dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Oviedo and director general for Universities and Research of the Principality of Asturias. Currently she is the delegate of the University of Oviedo at the Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard University. Besides, she has always been committed to education and the role of the Humanities and has participated in the Pre-Texts training program.
Gediminas Urbonas is an artist, educator, researcher, and co-founder of US: Urbonas Studio, an interdisciplinary research practice that facilitates exchanges between diverse nodes of knowledge production and artistic practice in pursuit of projects that transform civic spaces and collective imaginaries.
Gonzalo Aguilar holds a Ph.D. from the University of Buenos Aires, is a professor of Brazilian Literature at UBA, and is a researcher at CONICET. He directs the Master's program in Latin American Literatures at the National University of San Martín and has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, Harvard University, and the University of São Paulo. In 2005, he received the Guggenheim Fellowship.
Currently holds the position of Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies and is a University Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago. Additionally, he serves as the Institute Director of The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts at the Harris School. Prior to his current roles, Dr. Robinson taught at Harvard University from 2004 to 2015, and has also taught at institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley, University of Southern California, and the University of Melbourne.
He studied Hispanic American Literature and Philosophy. He holds a Ph.D. in Italian and Hispanic American Languages and Literatures from Harvard University. He has been awarded the National Youth Prize by the Ministry of Education of Peru for the project "Poetic Pedagogies," which promotes educational design through art and humanities.
Director of the Instituto Desarrollo, Paraguay. Dr. José Molinas was in charge of the Minister of the Technical Secretariat for Economic and Social Development Planning (STP) in 2013. Doctor in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a member of the National Economic Team, coordinator of the executive team of the Social Cabinet, executive secretary of the Excellence Fund for Education and Research, and member of the Strategic Coordination Committee of the “Carlos Antonio López” Scholarships.
She holds a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona (1998) and has been dedicated to teaching, curating, critiquing, and theorizing photography since 1992. Currently, she is a researcher at the Institute of Aesthetic Research (UNAM) and a member of the National Researchers System (Conacyt). She served as coordinator of the Extraordinary Chair Olivier Debroise (MUAC-French Embassy, from 2012 to 2015) and has also been a tutor in the Young Creators Program (from 2004 to 2007) and a member of the Selection Committee of the National System of Creators in Photography (2016) of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts. She currently coordinates the Seminar on Art and Technology [Fn] Museum / [Ctrl] Space / [Alt] Technology (Institute of Aesthetic Research, UNAM-Cultural Center of Spain in Mexico).
Professor of Ethics, Philosophy and Education courses at PUCP. Consultant on educational and cultural policy issues. PhD in Social Justice Education (UMass-Amherst), MA in International Education (UMass-Amherst), BA in Philosophy (PUCP) and BA in Humanities (PUCP).
Professor at the Law School and Academic Vice Chancellor of Universidad Mayor. He pursued undergraduate studies in History at PUC, a master's degree in Latin American Studies at the University of Chile, and a doctorate at l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He was a visiting research fellow at Brown University, and has been awarded the John Carter Brown Library Fellowship and the Simon Collier Prize, jointly awarded by the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame and the History Institute at PUC.
Olatz Etxebarria is a Psychopedagogist with 16 years of teaching experience in Europe, United States and Asia. She is about to finish her doctoral thesis in the Doctoral Program of Psychodidactics: Educational Psychology and Specific Didactics at the University of the Basque Country with an international stay at Harvard University. She is a strong advocate for diversity and real inclusion, emphasizing identity.
Ph.D. in Philosophy with a focus on Aesthetics and Art Theory and Master's in Visual Arts from the University of Chile, Chiuminatto is a professor at the Faculty of Literature at the Catholic University, coordinator of digital projects, and member of the Center for Studies in Chilean Literature (CELICH). He conducts formalized research in the field of cultural history, hypermedia, iconology, and aesthetics.
Paulina Núñez Lagos holds a PhD in Hispanic Philology and a Master's degree in Psycholinguistics. Her main focus lies in the implementation of innovative educational methodologies to support teaching and the integral development of students in vulnerable environments in Chile, focusing on language and socioemotional well-being.
Professor of Economics at the Department of Neuroscience, Imaging, and Clinical Studies, University of Chieti-Pescara. Additionally, he holds the position of Senior Adviser to the OECD in Paris and serves as a Research Affiliate at the metaLAB at Harvard, located in Cambridge, MA.
Sophie Brown is a PhD student in Critical Studies in Improvisation with a collaborative specialization in International Development Studies, University of Guelph. In partnership with the British-Academy funded Education, Peace, and Politics research network, she is conducting research on higher education pedagogy at Koya University in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She is part of the 2023 MBA Cohort at the Global Leaders Institute for Arts Innovation. Sophie was a Harvard Cultural Agents Pre-Texts Intern in Summer 2022.
Cultural Agents Coordinator in Colombia. Associate Professor II affiliated with the Architecture Program at Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano. Architect and specialist in Innovation and University Pedagogy from Universidad Piloto De Colombia. Master's degree in Urban Management from the same university in partnership with La Ecole Nationale De Ponts Et Chaussées De Paris.
