La Casa has two full-time professional staff members that help set the vision of the center, which is heavily influenced by current student needs while honoring the center’s history and legacy. La Directora and the Associate Director supervise La Casa’s student staff, advise affiliate student organizations, support individual students, manage center operations, host events and programs, engage in collaborations across campus, serve on a variety of committees, and much more.
As of November 2024, former Director Eileen M. Galvez stepped down from La Casa leadership and began a 2024-2025 Research Fellowship with Yale Education Studies.
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Maryam Parhizkar Interim Director of La Casa Cultural (Pronouns: She/Her/Hers/Ella) Maryam joins La Casa as Interim Director in November 2024, following her role as Interim Assistant Director. While a Ph.D. candidate in the departments of American Studies and African American Studies, she has worked with Yale students as a Teaching Fellow; Graduate Writing Fellow in the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning; and Graduate Affiliate with Ezra Stiles College. She holds over a decade of experience in the New York City cultural sector, advocating in various capacities for artists across mediums committed to social justice. In addition to being a scholar of race, empire and Afrodiasporic and Latine aesthetics, she is an accomplished poet and literary editor. In 2024-2025, she co-organized (with former La Casa Directora Eileen M. Galvez and Dr. María Aguilar Velazquez) the inaugural Central American Futurities conference at Yale, the first international conference dedicated to Central American Studies in the northeastern United States. Maryam holds a B.A. in English from Columbia University and an M.A. in American Studies from the CUNY Graduate Center. Born and raised in Houston, Texas to working-class Salvadoran and Iranian parents, she has resided in the northeast for nearly two decades. |
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Carolina Dávila (on leave through April 2025) Associate Director of La Casa Cultural (Pronouns: She/Her/Hers/Ella) Carolina joined La Casa and Yale in June 2017 as Assistant Director and was promoted to Associate Director in April 2022. She is a Davenport fellow and manages certain operations and planning opportunities for the Student Engagement unit. From April 2020 until April 2021, she was an Interim Program Manager for Student Organization at Yale College. Carolina is involved with professional organizations, such as NASPA and ACPA, focusing her engagement in equity- and identity-based opportunities. Prior to Yale, Carolina was a Residence Hall Director at the University of Connecticut (UConn) in Storrs, CT. Carolina is a Mami of two kiddos. Inspired by her own transition into parenthood and the support she received, Carolina became a certified doula in August 2023. With an increasing interest in supporting sutdent-parents in higher education, Carolina worked with the Office of Facilities to install a baby-changing station in La Casa’s ADA bathroom. Carolina is Afro Boricua, a native of Puerto Rico via Boston, and identifies as a first-generation low-income college graduate. Carolina received her bachelor’s degree in Communication Disorders with a minor in Spanish from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and her master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from the University of Pennsylvania. |
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Juan Carlos Salinas Interim Assistant Director (Pronouns: He/Him/His/El) Juan Carlos Salinas s the former Director of Education at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, and currently serves as Executive Director of La Unidad Latina Foundation . He has developed and implemented curricula based on various artistic disciplines, social activism, and leadership skill-building for more than twenty-five New York City schools and cultural institutions. He is a contributing writer of New York City’s Blueprint for Theater Education and is a contributor for Sing for Hope’s Art U curriculum. He has worked as Education Director of City Lights Youth Theater, Associate Director of Education at Yale Repertory Theater, and Education Manager of Ars Nova and Ballet Hispanico. Recently Juan Carlos, as Director of College Access Initiatives, oversaw the creation of the BFA Acting program at Long Island University- Brooklyn in partnership with the New Group Theater Company. Juan Carlos holds an MFA in Theater Management/ Non-Profit Management with an emphasis in Education from Yale University. Juan Carlos is the founder of the Y Tu Tambien, the college access program of the La Unidad Latina Foundation, which unites Latino alumni from across the Ivy League to help students in need gain acceptance into their desired colleges and provides school and career exploration workshops. He is the current Chair and founding member of the Yale Latino Alumni Association of the Tri State Area,board member of the Yale Latino Alumni Network, and board member of the Inter- Ivy League Latino Alumni Council. Juan Carlos is a proud native of Rio Grande City, in Starr County, TX. |
