Read McNamara (M.A. 1970) is the new Executive Director of The Career Management Center.  Has  had a long career in international business, most of it in Latin America.  Upon graduation, he lived and worked in Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela, running the region for a number of companies.

David Anderson (M.A. 1990) is Director of Recruitment and Partner Support for ELS Language Centers, a division of Berlitz which arranges intensive language seminars on college campuses for international students.   He and his wife and children (ages 5 and 6) live in Robinsville, NJ.

Gregory Johnson (M.A .1991) lives Mount Pleasant, SC. He works for Science Applications International Corporation, an international company that does primarily federal/defense contracts. Retired from the U.S. Army since 2003, his additional specialty was Foreign Area Officer specializing in Latin America.  Gregory’s assignments included Colombia and Bolivia, and he his work often involved frequent travel to Brazil for Army-to-Army bilateral programs.  In 1977 he married the former Donna Gregg, and together they have two grown daughters and two grandchildren.

Luke Gebhard (M.A.2000) is returning “home” to Nashville to live and work, after spending the last decade in New York and Los Angeles. Following an eight-year tenure at New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation in New York City, Luke and his wife relocated to Los Angeles in October 2008.  In Los Angeles, Luke primarily worked as a substitute teacher at a well regarded private high school, an experience which has fortified his ambition to become a full-time educator.

Bryan Pitts, (M.A. 2006) will start his fifth year of doctoral work in History at Duke. He is in the final phases of 15 months of dissertation research work in Brazil, funded by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship, studying how changes in the political culture of São Paulo’s elites during the 1964-1985 military dictatorship helped weaken the regime and bring about a more participatory democracy after the regime fell.

Sandra Martinez- Zuniga (M.A. 2007) was recently chosen to receive the Galassi-Brown Advocacy Award from the School of Counseling Program at the University of North Carolina.  Martinez-Zuniga, who completed her Master of Education in School Counseling, was nominated for the award by UNC faculty.

James Remington Krause (M.A .Portuguese 2007) went to Brigham Young University in January 2010 as a Visiting Instructor of Portuguese. Currently finishing up his dissertation, “Translation ‘Failure’ and the Reception and Influence of Latin American Literature in the United States” (adviser: Earl Fitz), he hopes to defend it in September. In the fall James will enter the tenure track at BYU.

Aleza Remis ( B.A. LAS 2007) is Washington, DC working for The Alliance for Climate Protection.  She is also starting to think about applying to law school for the Fall of 2010.  She still wants to work in a Latin America-related area and is also very interested in politics.

James Winland, (M.A. 2008) is stationed with the US Military in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He currently works as an instructor of a Command and State course, teaching  English and  Doctrine Tactics to Brazilian Army officers.

Clay Giese (B.A. LAS 2009) is currently in grad school at the University of Florida pursuing his MA in Latin American Studies. Concentrating on Development Studies, he is working on his thesis about the “Effect of Bolsa Familia (a poverty reduction program) on Child Mortality Rates in Brazil.  Recently Clay won a grant to do research in Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte for 2 weeks.  Upon graduation in May of 2011, he is considering the Peace Corps, a job with an NGO or Business School.

John Trylch (M.A. 2009) has been working as the U.S. Military Group’s Chief of Operations, as well recently as the Chief of the Army Section. Says John, “Overall, I have learned immensely in the past year about not only Guatemala, but also about U.S. foreign affairs and policy- It has been a very professionally rewarding assignment so far.”  He and his wife Lindsey and daughter Anna live in Guatemala City.

Laura Morgan (M.A. 2009) Since graduation, Laura has had several teaching jobs, and is currently teaching English at DUOC, Universidad Católica Santiago, Chile.  She has also been getting involved with earthquake relief, especially rebuilding houses.

Charlton Yingling (M.A. 2009) is currently a PhD student in Latin American, Caribbean, and Atlantic World history at the University of South Carolina.

Jason Vulcan (M.A. 2010) deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan following graduation in December 2010. He has spent the past eleven months assigned to the NATO Training Mission, Afghanistan’s Security Assistance Office, as the Foreign Military Sales Branch Chief for Afghan National Police Equipment. He was recently nominated to a position as an Assistant Army Attaché, and in the next year will return to Latin America to take a position in the US Embassy, in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Laura Delgado (M.A. 2010) is in her second year working with Conexion Americas, the premier Latino non-profit in Nashville. She is a Parental Engagement Specialist working to create a strong partnership between Latino parents and local public middle & high schools. She plans to eventually return to academia to pursue a PH.D in History, in particular the intersection of religion & democracy in Brazil.

Morgan Maxwell (M.A. 2010) is in the second semester of her first year in the Social Psychology doctoral program at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Working under Dr. Faye Belgrave, she is examining skin tone preferences and sexual practices among African Americans. In an effort to incorporate her research as a CLAS student, she wishes to conduct a cross-cultural study of skin tone preferences among African Americans and Afro-Brazilians in the future.

Leslie Rodríguez (M.A. 2010) is in her second year in the Sociology PhD program at Vanderbilt. Her research focuses on international migration and local immigration policy and she is currently writing a master’s thesis on Nashville’s 287g program. She is also working as an editorial assistant for the American Sociological Review, the flagship journal for the American Sociological Association.

Gustavo De Peña started working in December 2011 at the National Pension Call Center within the regional office of the Department of Veteran Affairs in Philadelphia, PA. He is currently being trained as a Public Contact Representative. The job centers on the customer service aspect of the pension claiming process that caters to retired or impaired veterans and their dependents.

Becky Reuse Martins is living in Ji-Paraná, Rondônia, Brazil and teaching English at a local language institute where she developed a new curriculum that incorporates character building and community development for young learners. She has also recently joined up with one of the local universities to create an accelerated English course for university students to prepare them for international academic conferences.

Hilary Voth moved to La Paz, Bolivia, and started teaching English for a language institute in the heart of the city. She has taught classes at the UN and the Swiss Embassy there, as well as to BBC scholarship recipients. She also does translation work for a Danish NGO, and is looking for work in the field of political science and research.

Rafael Romero moved back to Nicaragua and has been teaching at two law schools in Managua. At Universidad Americana he teaches one course on Negotiations, and another on Legal Systems. There he won an award for best professor in the fall of 2011. At Universidad Centroamericana he teaches Public International Law.

Steven Taylor is teaching Spanish at St. Henry School in West Meade, Tennessee and living in Hendersonville. He and his wife are enjoying the growth and development of their two-year-old daughter, who was born during his first semester at Vanderbilt.

The Department of Education has designated CLAS as one of its Foreign Language and Area Studies Programs and funds five graduate fellowships annually, as well as summer travel to Brazil, Guatemala, and Mexico for intensive language training. Vanderbilt CLAS is also one of the select graduate programs approved by the U.S. Army for its Foreign Area Officer training.

Roberto Perez 2007 - FAO in San Antonio, Texas

John Suggs 2008 - US Defense Attaché Office in La Paz, Bolivia

James Winland 2008 - US Army in Rio de Janeiro; Instructor of a Command and State course, teaching  English and  Doctrine Tactics to Brazilian Army officers

John Trylch 2009 - US Military Group’s Chief of Operations in Guatemala City, Guatemala

Jason Vulcan 2010 - Branch Chief, Afghan National Police in Camp Eggers, Afghanistan