Dr. Anne Gebelein,  University of Connecticut
Associate Director of El Instituto and
Associate Professor in Residence, Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Dr. Gebelein received her doctorate, M. Phil., and Master’s in Hispanic Literatures from Yale University Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese. Prior to her position at UConn, she worked as an educational consultant for the Anti-Defamation League and the Coordinating Council for Children in Crisis, and as a translator in health care and law enforcement settings. Anne Gebelein teaches a wide variety of courses in Latino and Latin American Studies, with a focus on migration, human rights, and border studies. She is faculty Co-Chair of Service Learning for the university, the ECE coordinator for Latin American Studies, and she directs community outreach efforts for El Instituto.

Dr. Diana Barnes, Skidmore College
Senior Teaching Professor of Spanish

Diana Barnes, PhD, is a Senior Teaching Professor at Skidmore College.  She began crossing the US/Mexico border as a toddler with her family at the San Ysidro point of entry near San Diego to visit her grandfather in Sonora, Mexico.  Over the decades, she has witnessed not only changes to the physical fence itself, but as well, the construct’s mythical, psychological, and political forces that project from the steel and concrete barrier.    Professor Barnes teaches courses about the US/Mexico border, as well as Spanish language & literature.  As a  life-long border crosser she holds a fundamental belief that the study of geographically contrived lines of division provides a unique critical lens into the state of humanity

Lucca Lucero de Alva,
Volunteer teacher in MPP Camp, Ciudad Juárez;
World Organization for Peace representative

Born in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, Lucero Claudia De Alva Fernandez is an industrial engineer by trade, currently pursuing a master’s degree in Business Administration. She is the mother of 4 adult children--Daniela, Victoria Eugenia, Juan Pablo and Martha Isabel—and a business-owner. Her company, English Education Services, with provides English-Spanish translation, classes and interpreting services to the maquiladora industry since 1999.

Lucero is the author of the children's story "Pita y los girasoles" from which a peace project called "Sembrando Paz" (Sowing Peace) was born, through which she has been able to reach more than 50,000 children in schools in the state of Chihuahua and throughout the country, as well as some schools in the United States.

Since 2019 Lucero has been in charge of the "Children and Youth for Peace" program, a title awarded by the World Organization for Peace. In 2018 she was named "Distinguished Woman" of Juarez by the Ibero-American Women's Group and nominated for the title "Woman of the Year" by the group of professional women of Cd. Juarez.

Lucero is a dedicated volunteer and lover of the children of her city and the world. She volunteers in support of our migrant brothers and sisters, for whom she have been working since February 13, 2019, the day the first part of a caravan of migrants arrived in Ciudad Juarez. She have been part of the team that built the network of shelters for migrants, and feels fortunate to enable spaces within shelters that function as schools for the children who live in them, managing to get their education certified by the Federal Government (Secretary of Public Education).