Latin American and Caribbean Studies

WPI’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies program brings together a scholarly community from across the Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM fields to engage with critical issues that affect the region and its relations with other parts of the world.

Practitioners in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at WPI focus their attention especially on issues related to:

Environment, sustainability, ecocriticism, and climate adaptation
Migration, mobilities, diaspora, and transregional communities
Intercultural understanding, language and literary analysis, ethnicity and race, and social activism

For students, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program offers specialized course offerings in the Humanities & Arts department; WPI’s curriculum in Spanish and Latin American literature; and its project centers located in Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Puerto Rico, and more.

a classroom lecture shown from the back of the room

Events

Activities hosted at WPI offer ways for experts and activists to enrich our campus though engagements with Latin America and Caribbean Studies. We also provide platforms for faculty and students at WPI to present their research.

Find out about LACS events

People

Our faculty represent departments and disciplines from around WPI’s campus. They serve as instructors in the classroom, capstone project advisors on campus, and direct and advise students at many WPI Project Centers in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Find out about LACS faculty

Podcast

The LACS podcast series – Crossing Fronteras – focuses on contemporary scholarship and art in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. It broadcasts interviews with scholars and creatives from institutions around New England working on the region.

Find LACS podcast episodes

street scene with green trees and a colorful mural on a white wall

Scholarship

Research conducted by faculty and students affiliated with the LACS program is concentrated in the areas of Environment and Ecocriticism; Mobilities and Migration; and Language and Cultural Competency. We present our work at conferences and contribute to publications in a variety of fields.

Learn about LACS research and scholarship

Explore the Latin American & Caribbean Studies Minor

WPI's Latin American & Caribbean Studies (LACS) curriculum allows students to sharpen their knowledge and skills related to the region, while enabling them to reach across linguistic, geographic, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries.

Learn More About the LACS Minor

Campus to Global

Latin American and Caribbean Studies take place in and out of the classroom at WPI. Students, faculty, and staff work together in courses, at global project centers, in student clubs, and through on-campus activities. Events bringing together the campus community to engage with topics related to the region have covered recent elections in Brazil, the presence of right-wing nationalism in Latin America, and the crises associated with migration from Latin America and the Caribbean to the United States. In project centers like those in Costa Rica and Paraguay, students work with community partners to confront issues like environmental sustainability and socio-economic development.

LACS Global Project Centers

For years, students have traveled to WPI’s Latin American project centers to work on projects that make an immediate impact on the communities in which they work.

WPI’s Latin American project centers:

Asunción, Paraguay
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Campinas, Brazil
Cuenca, Ecuador
Monteverde, Costa Rica
Panama City, Panama
San José, Costa Rica
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Find additional information on WPI’s Global Projects Centers.

Latin American and Caribbean Student Clubs

WPI has student clubs and professional associations for students interested in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Brazilian Student Association at WPI

Hispanic and Caribbean Student Association

Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers