Puentes 2023 - 2024

Puentes and SHPE-Grad are kicking off the academic year with a large Fall Welcome celebration, bringing together both returning and incoming graduate students to build community and connection during Latinx Heritage Month. Join us for an evening of socializing, music, dancing, and delicious food. 

Join Puentes at a University of Michigan Volleyball game versus Ohio State at the iconic Crisler Center. We will provide tickets and snacks to all attendees. Be sure to wear Blue!

You may also bring one guest at no additional cost. Please indicate if you are bringing a guest when you complete your RSVP. 

Students please bring your MCard to gain entry into the event. 

Join Puentes for a beginner Cumbia dance lesson! No partner needed and water is provided. Wear comfortable clothes and join us for an evening of dancing. There will be a guided lesson from 7:00pm-8:00pm and open dancing until 9:00pm. We look forward to seeing you there!

This event is co-sponsored by the Latinx Student Psychological Association (LSPA) 

Language is part of our culture and facilitates meaningful connections within Latinx communities. Puentes’ Spanish Conversation Circle event aims to provide a space for cross-cultural understanding and awareness of our campus Latinx community through conversation. The Spanish Conversation Circle creates a space for our campus Latinx community and other Spanish-speakers to participate in free conversation and guided activities that promote cultural exchange. 

Join Puentes, BGSA, and SCOR as we host our annual writing session in the Michigan Union. We are excited to create a space for us to be in community and make progress on our academic work together. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. We hope to see you there. 

This evening event will be a space of celebration, acknowledging the impact of Latinx scholarship and research relevant to Latinx populations and building anticipation of the upcoming sessions. There will be live music, interactive activities, a buffet, and a photographer offering professional headshots. We are also hosting Dr. Aurora Kamimura, Dr. Mark Kamimura-Jiménez, Marco Kamimura, and Carina Wilson, a family of keynote speakers, to address our convening body regarding our theme Illuminating Familismo. 

Chemistry Department Sponsored Session - snacks provided!

Kevin E. Rivera Cruz, "Multiscale Characterization of the Electrochemical Conversion of CO2 to Methanol using Immobilized Molecular Catalysts."

Alma Perez, "Palladium-Catalyzed Alkene Difunctionalization Reactions Using Nitriles and Aromatic Anions for the Synthesis of Indane Derivatives"

Sabrina Nobrega Carneiro, "Exploring Novel Applications of Cyclopropenium Cations in Organic Synthesis"

LSA Sponsored session - snacks provided! 

Julianna Loera-Wiggins, "Home and Homeland in Latina Stand-Up Comedy"

Kaitlyn Potter, "Decoding Sazón: Identity and Principles of Taste in the U.S. Borderlands"

Kristen Leer, "What Does Trauma(tic) Media Look Like?"

Wendy de los Reyes, "On the Frontlines in Florida: Narratives of Latina Youth Organizers"

William Calvo-Quirós, "Muchas Familias: Multiplurality and Queer Families Amount Latinx Communities"

Deborah Rivas-Drake, "Familismo: Implications for Youth"

Sharim Hannegan-Martinez, "Pedagogies of Love as a Praxis of Familismo"

Ford School of Public Policy Sponsored Session - snacks provided!

Kristina Fullerton Rico, "How Families Separated by the U.S.–Mexico Border Mourn from Afar"

Alexie Milukhin, "Hispanic-Centered Community Capacity Building in Michigan"

Faculty Session: Latinos in the Arts

Lawrence La Foundtain-Stokes, "PROMESA, Anti-Colonial Drag, and Diasporic Puerto Rican Trans Revolution"

Puentes is hosting an interdisciplinary poster session where attendees can browse the array of research on display. Heavy appetizers and refreshments are provided.

The poster session will rotate presenters halfway through resulting in one group presenting from 3:45-5:15pm and another group presenting 5:30-7:00pm. We encourage attendees to drop in for both of these sessions to examine the full breadth of research on display. 

Victoria Vezaldenos, "Predictors of Biracial Adolescent Ethnic-Racial Identity Salience"

Eduardo Ochoa Rivera, "Optimal Thresholding Linear Bandit"

Marcus Spinelli da Silva, "Trans, Travesti, and Non-Binary Employability and Health Outcomes in São Paulo, Brazil"

Carolina Rojas Ramirez, "Thermal Proteome Profiling Analysis using FragPipe"

Diana Carolina Vergara-Florez, "From microbes to neurotoxins: Decoding eco-evolutionary processes between venomous molluscs and their microbiome"

Frida Salgado, "Drops of Inequality: Analyzing Gender Disparities in Water Access and Policy in Mexico City"

Leandro Javier Frigerio, "Characterizing filament-induced breakdown spectroscopy through highly scattering media"

Chloe Collon, "Creating Communities through Global Reading Exchange: Amigos del cuarto grado de Naranjito, Puerto Rico y Michigan, EEUU"

Hannah E. Rice, "ICE in the Heartland: Developing an arts-based education curriculum to promote immigrant justice"

Brenda Hernandez, "Temperate Forest Complexity and its Implications on the Alpha and Beta Diversity in Soil Function Across Chronological Disturbances"

Brianna Alissandra Ramos, "High-resolution neurochemical characterization of the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus"

Alexandria Chabez, "Biochemical Characterization of Human Cytochrome P450 7B1 Missense Mutations to Understand Spastic Paraplegia Type 5 Disease"

Ana Cecilia Saavedra Bazan, "Non-contrast MR Fingerprinting for Quantitative Differentiation of Ischemic Scar and Viable Myocardium"

Thania Flores, "Are there gender differences in housing among U.S. farmworkers?"

Carla Micaela Girardini, "A Journey from Small Collective to Thriving Astronomy Community"

Patricia Torres-Pineda, "Insights on Trophic Ecology of Freshwater fishes in the Dominican Republic using Stable Isotopes: preliminary results"

Giuliana Fagre Guerriero, "The Effects of Chemically Induced Diabetes on Bone Architecture Changes Along Bone Length"

Abdias Noel, "A Tandem Reaction Sequence for the Radiofluorination of Aryl Halides"

Andrew Cruz, Anaise Thomas, John Wolfe - "Palladium-Catalyzed Alkene Difunctionalization Reactions for the Synthesis of Amino Tetralin Derivatives"

Ila Y. Castro De la Torre, "Exploring Directed C-H Functionalization Using Cyclometalated Nickel Complexes"

Amina Dunn, Gayatri Narayanan, Tre'Nard Morgan, Monique Rollins, Michelle Martinez, and Paula Astudillo - "Creating a Justice Movement Cohort"

Raquel Cruz Pizzardo, "Sapotaceae across time and space: a taxonomic and historical biogeographic perspective"

Ana Laura Perez Ternent, "Streams of struggle: water insecurity and its effects on perceived stress"

Isabel Reyes, "The Effect of Socioeconomic Status on Water Perception of Women in Mexico City"

Heizel K. Acosta Vilanova, "Exploring the Impact of Gut Microbiota in Colitis"

Anushree Bhatia, "Beyond Monoliths: Exploring Familial Support and School Bonding in African American and CaribbeanBlack Adolescents"

Anthony Carreon, "Real-time Flow Simulation in Urban Environments"

Macarena Peralta, "Designing Intelligent Spaces for Collaboration"

Yvette Ramirez, "chuymar katuqaña - The Past as Future Making: Andean Diasporic Archives"

Alicia Dominguez, "Tradeoff between prediction accuracy and transferability in the design of polygenic risk scores of bipolar disorder"

Lisby Santiago Pagán, "Achieving Monovalent/Divalent Selectivity in Cation Exchange Membranes with Concentration Gradient-Driven Transport"

Nia Lucas, "Heat related illness and the intersection of climate change, precarious employment, and environmental justice in farmworkers: A scoping literature review"

Sofia Dziechciarz, "Investigating the Role of GPx4 In Colorectal Cancer"

Ariana Bueno, "Improving Latinx Representation in STEM through educational outreach and STEM engagement programs"

Lester Armando Mejia Gomez, "Reasons matter: Preliminary results on moral evaluations of immigration policies based on reasons for immigrating"

Jennifer Zamudio, "Exploring Recurrent Communication as a Facilitator of Effective Teamwork in Robotic Surgery"

School of Education Sponsored Session - snacks provided!

Cassandra Arroyo, "Exploring Institutional Capacity Building at Puerto Rican Hispanic-Serving Institutions through the Title V Program"

Valeria Ortiz-Villalobos, "Can the Simple View of Reading Inform the Study of Reading Comprehension in Young Spanish Heritage Language learners?"

Berenice A. Cabrera, "Understanding the Skills and Knowledge Emphasized in Undergraduate Industrial Engineering Courses"

Zahira V. Flores-Gaona, "“Palabras Mágicas” Enriching the vocabulary development of Spanish heritage language children in SE Michigan"

LSA Sponsored Session - snacks provided!

Ashley Crooks-Allen, " “Mestizaje Undone: A Qualitative Social Media Analysis of Afro-Latinx Identity & #BLM Activism”"

Cecilia Solis-Barroso, "A generational analysis of variation and change in the Noun Phrase Morphosyntax of Huasteca Nahuatl"

Astrid Hurtado, "How Children Learn With Artificial Intelligence: A Study of Dialogic Story Listening"

SACNAS Sponsored Session: Investigaciones en Espanol

Zaira Pagan Cajigas, "Estimating Tropical Cyclone induced Power Outages in Future Climate Scenarios' Impact on Socio-economically Vulnerable Populations and Racial and Ethnic Minorities "

Lisbeth Iglesias-Rios, "Empleo Precario, Explotacion Laboral y Salud: Proyecto de Trabajadores Agrícolas en Michigan"

Ana Morcillo Pallares, "Políticas de Equilibrio: Arquitectura, Negociación y Resultados Potenciales"

Vianey Rueda, "Modelado de las disposiciones de los tratados de aguas transfronterizas para comprender su cumplimiento: el Río Bravo y el Tratado de Aguas de 1944"

LRW Interdisciplinary Session

Ariana Peruzzi, "When We Decide: Voluntary Migration and Family Choice"

Julianne Armijo, "The Impact of Sleep Instability on Quality of Life in Registered Nurses with Bipolar Disorders"

Elisa Bravo, "Cultural Forms of Making: Integrating funds of knowledge in academic makerspaces"

Edgard Rivera-Valentin, "Balancing Family, Community, and Planetary Science"

LRW Mass Oral Session Sponsored by the Rackham Graduate School - Dinner is provided!

Oral Session A

Elena Crosley, "Role of Gendering in Undergraduate Mathematics Advising"

Megan Gross, "Sembrando Juntes: Seeding Sovereignty, Together"

Savannah Sturla Irizarry, "Prenatal metal(loid) exposure and child neurodevelopmental outcomes in Puerto Rico"

Oral Session B

Genesis Rodriguez, "Molecular Mechanisms Underlying VPS13A Disease"

Julio César Zelaya, "Expanding the potential of proteins as synthetic nanocarriers for drug delivery applications"

Natalia Crystal Ubilla Rodriguez, "Enterobacterial encapsulin nanocompartments release their peroxidase cargo under acid stress"

Sofia Ruiz-Sierra, "Familismo and Mental Health among Latinx College Students"

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Sponsored Session - snacks provided!

Andrea Benavides Castaño, "Variation in Migration Distance in 24 Species of North American Songbirds"

Diana Medellín-Zabala, "Inferring diversification history and niche evolution of the Brazil nut family (Lecythidaceae) in the Neotropics"

Michelle Orozco-Quime, "Mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) proteins mediate the adaptive mitochondrial response to endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae"

Patricia Torres-Pineda, "Diversity and Comparative Phylogenetics and phylogenomics of the genus Limia (CYPRINODONTIFORMES: Poeciliidae) using Next Generation Sequencing"

Roberto Márquez Pizano, "The genetics and evolution of colors and toxins in poison-dart frogs"

Faculty Panel: Familismo, Research, and Career Success

David Cordova, Thomas Valley, William Lopez

Physics Sponsored Session - snacks provided!

Francesco Sessa, "Fisica y Cultura: Perspectives from Latinx Physicists at University of Michigan"

Leo Pando-Zayas, "Fisica y Cultura: Perspectives from Latinx Physicists at University of Michigan"

Cynthia Nunez, "Fisica y Cultura: Perspectives from Latinx Physicists at University of Michigan"

Social Work Sponsored Session - snacks provided!

Sarah Paige Bost, "Exploring Gender Disparities: Differences in Discrimination Experiences Among Latinos and Latinas at a Midwestern Predominantly White Institution"

Lady Funcke, "Luz- Light after Darkness"

Julio Canino Rodríguez, "Unmasking the Invisible Crisis: Student Perceptions and Professional Experiences with Undocumented Domestic Violence Survivors in Puerto Rico"

Lady Funcke, "Breaking Barriers: Empowering The Hispanic and Latinx Community"

Carlos Vivaldo, "YHLQMDLG: Combining My Latino Roots With Neuroscience"

College of Engineering Sponsored Session - snacks provided!

Joshua Jack, "Building a new carbon economy"

Lauro Ojeda, "Motion Tracking and Biomechanics"

Carlos Urrego, "Development of a Mouse Model to Evaluate Changes in Female Bone Architecture and Osteocyte Senescence with Type 2 Diabetes"

Lucero Lopez, "The New Generation and the Road Ahead"

This event will recognize the outstanding scholarship presented during the LRW conference. Prizes will be raffled off to student presenters, faculty awards will be presented, and sponsors will be recognized. There will be a DJ, photo booth, and dinner will be provided.