Our advisors are people who are particularly skilled in something specific related to the project such as film, photography, food history, gardening, cooking, etc. They have their own amazing experiences with traveling and immigration. If you are interested in reaching out to them to get their support with one specific kind of food or have technical questions, let us know.
Allison Corbett (United States-Mexico-Ecuador-Argentina) was born and raised in Williamsburg, Virginia. She has a rare genetic disorder which means that she follows a diet low in protein and cooks all the time. She has lived, studied and adapted recipes in many places throughout the United States and Latin America including Washington, DC, Chicago, Morelia, México, Bahía de Caráquez, La Plata. She currently lives in New York City where she is a Spanish interpreter, and does creative oral history work at the intersection of social justice and storytelling. She loves to roast vegetables and cook hearty soups.
Moisés Park (Chile-Bolivia-United States) was raised in Bolivia and Chile by Korean parents. He loves Korean foods and cooks as much as his wife at home. Moisés and his two daughters love everything he cooks and they are particularly fans of the desserts that have manjar (condensed milk with chocolate) and powdered sugar. His specialty are seafood dishes and Korean stews with Kimchi.
Vanesa Miseres (Argentina-United States) was born in Santa Fe, Argentina, a province with strong European immigrant roots that can easily be detected in people’s passion for bread, pastries, and pasta. With zero experience in the kitchen, Vanesa moved to the USA to pursue a PhD in Latin American literature. Being far from home and researching on travel writing—there is no travelogue without at least a paragraph on food—was the perfect combo for her to become interested in food as a cultural expression. She has taken this interest both to her daily life—specializing in bakery and ethnic food—and her academic research, exploring the connections between literature and food in Latin America and the importance of cooking and food in gender roles. At her home, one can always find flour, eggs, and butter, three essential ingredients that can lead you to thousands of recipes and cultural journeys…
Dina Margarita O´Meara Pereira (United States-Brazil-Israel-Canada) – born in Venezuela to a Nicaraguan mother and Irish-Russian father. Having lived in the U.S., Brazil, Israel, and now Canada, she loves hosting food-themed Valentine´s Days parties and boisterous Passover seders. Essential items in her kitchen are garlic, cumin, thyme and really good gin.
Ivich Arlette Kamau (Congo-France-Spain-United States) is originally from Brazzaville, the capital of Congo. She has lived in St. Dennis and Aulnay sous Bois (France) and Barcelona (Spain). She has a son with allergies (to almost everything… all nuts, gluten, dairy, some fruits, etc.) that needs to carry an epipen everywhere. For this reason she has had to modify her recipes every day in Kansas. She loves olive oil and she needs to have a microwave.
Mythili Menon (India-United States) comes from Cochin, India, the land of spices and the place where the Portuguese first landed in search of spices. She has lived in Hyderabad, Los Angeles, before moving to Wichita. Her travels to the Far East and Europe interested her gastronomic sense, and she tries to recreate these dishes in the comfort of her home. She loves spicy foods and cannot tolerate sweets and desserts, which her students find amusing. She also loves to bake and cannot do without her Kitchen aid stand mixer.
Pilar Eguez Guevara (Ecuador-Cuba-United States) is a cultural anthropologist originally from Quito, Ecuador. She is a long-time social science researcher of Latin America and the Caribbean area. She spent a decade learning Cuban culture and history for her research and has experience teaching in the U.S., Ecuador and Cuba. Her latest research focuses on healthy aging, gender, food culture which she started as a postdoctoral fellow in Community Health at U of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Pilar is the founder and director of Comidas que Curan (Foods that Heal), an independent education initiative using film and ethnography to research and promote the value of local food and health knowledge. Find more information here https://quinuaqueens.wordpress.com
Andrea Holmberg (Argentina-Canada) was born in the Northeastern area of Argentina, and grew up in Buenos Aires. She learned to love cooking from her maternal grandmother, who was a real everyday cook. Andy remembers shopping together to get the freshest produce, meats and amazing French bread; she remembers seeing her abuela sitting in the patio, whisking egg yolks and oil that would magically become mayonnaise; and she remembers big family meals where grandma would make Locro, the recipe that has now become Andy´s own tradition with family and friends in Canada. This country taught Andy about diversity, both in the kitchen and life. She learned about different spices and got curious about defining Canadian cuisine (hint: it´s not possible). She enjoys funky fushion dishes and also appreciates the simplicity of an everyday home cooked meal and a nice glass of wine. Her treasured item: her Japanese Chef´s knife.
Marina Alexandrova (Russia - France - Spain - United States) was born and raised in Saratov, Russia, Marina lived and traveled in Europe before coming to the United States to study comparative literature. Now Marina teaches a variety of courses, including one on the history and politics of Russian food and drink, in which her students get to recreate authentic Russian recipes from different epochs. Even though borsch and buckwheat are still some of her favorite foods, Marina's trips to Cuba, Brazil, and Mexico made her fell in love with culinary traditions of those countries.
Maricarmen Malgaret (Spain-United States-Argentina-Venezuela) was born is Madrid, from an Andalusian dad of Swiss descent and an extremeña mom. She has lived in Madrid, New York, Buenos Aires and Caracas. She loves dark chocolate and simple well-cooked food that makes her remember her childhood. She has trained her non-Spanish husband to eat gazpacho, garlic soup, pisto and escalibada. She is a goldsmith and even though she is a good cook, she´d rather be served the food and not prepare it.
Huzefa Gagdi (India-Malaysia-United States) is originally from India. He currently resides in Florida with his wife Shehnaaz and daughter Alana. Shehnaaz was born and raised on the Malaysian island of Penang, which is popularly known as the “food paradise”. Huzefa loves to dabble with cooking and gardening, among other things. He always seemed to be on an incessant quest for the next gastronomic delight. His go to ingredients often include onions, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, and chili peppers, and of course, his closely guarded “spice box”. He is an ardent believer of “live to eat and not just eat to live!”, which was inspirationally drawn from his mother – an avid cook for every occasion and a family benchmark! At times, he shares his cooking and gardening adventures on social media under the designation “Dahod Garden” (typically on Facebook and YouTube). He is often spotted on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast U., where he professes in Computer Science Engineering.
Monica Vallin (Bolivia-Mexico-Colombia-United States)
was born in La Paz, Bolivia but has family roots in Mexico. Moni went to a German School and was raised also in Colombia. She moved to the United States and has lived in several cities (Austin, New York, Washington, etc.). She enjoys cooking and sending beautiful packages of cookies to her friends. On top of that, she researches colonial culinary traditions in Mexico and the Andean region. She can´t live without chilies! She needs to have a pressure cooker and good knives in her kitchen.
Karla González (Mexico-United States) was born near the Riviera Maya but was raised in the Huasteca Potosina region, near the Gulf of Mexico. Having an indigenous ancestry from her father’s side, she experienced all aspects of biculturalism at a very early age. She learned to cook with her mother since she was eight years old and grew up watching her indigenous grandmother cook traditional recipes with fresh, organic ingredients and spices containing naturally healing properties. Since then, she has been fascinated with how culinary traditions are tightly connected to cultural practices. She currently resides in Texas but has also lived for brief periods of time in Brazil, Italy, Ireland, and Costa Rica. Her kitchen must be stocked with good-quality spices and a great variety of chili peppers. She must also have a good soup pot, sharpened knives, a cast iron comal, and a traditional molcajete carved from volcanic rock.