About the Team

Arlene Davila, Founding Director

is Professor of Anthropology and Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. She studies the political economy of culture and media, consumption, immigration and the geographies of inequality and race. These research interests grew out of her early work in Latinx art and culturally specific museums and spaces in New York City, and have developed through her continued involvement in Latinx advocacy and interest in creative industries across the Americas. She has authored multiple books among them, Latinx Art: Artists, Markets and Politics. Learn more here.

Gabriel Magraner, Associate Director

is an arts administrator interested in intersections of culture and politics. Based in New York City by way of diasporican Texas, he currently works at The Latinx Project as Assistant Director. Previously as Director of Programs at the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, he led regranting programs, leadership institutes, and convenings serving an interdisciplinary and intergenerational field of artists and cultural workers. He is an MA graduate of NYU’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and past Fulbright ETA grantee to Brazil.

Jessica Enriquez, Program Administrator

is a community organizer and arts administrator from Sunset Park, Brooklyn. She is interested in political education, and the arts as a form of community building and healing. During her tenure at The Latinx Project, she has held positions as an undergraduate intern and Communications & Events Manager where she continues to work with artists, scholars, community organizers, and graduate students to execute robust programming. She is currently pursuing a Certificate in Arts Management at the NYU School of Professional Studies.

Margarita Lizcano Hernandez, Curatorial and Programs Associate

is a Mexican-American curator and art historian based in New York City. Her work centers on working with contemporary artists and looking at the role of print media in fostering artistic networks and collaborations across North and South America. Previously, she was Curatorial Associate in the Department of Drawings and Prints at MoMA, where she has helped organize and contributed scholarship for the exhibition and catalog projects Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You, New Ground: Jacob Samuel and Contemporary Etching, Vital Signs: Artists and the Body, and a forthcoming monographic exhibition of Eva Hesse: Wild Space, 1957-1970. Prior to working at MoMA, she held curatorial positions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. She holds a BA in Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA in the history of art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Yara Simón, Deputy Editor of Intervenxions

is a writer and editor with more than a decade of experience in Latinx media and SEO. Born and raised in Miami, she currently lives in Los Angeles. She is of Nicaraguan and Cuban descent and enjoys highlighting the Central American diaspora. Her work has appeared on Refinery29 and Remezcla. 

Urayoán Noel, Editor-in-Chief of Intervenxions

is Associate Professor of English and Spanish and Portuguese at New York University, and has also taught at SUNY Albany and at Stetson University's MFA of the Americas. He is the author of In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (Iowa, 2014), the first book-length study of Nuyorican poetry, which received the LASA Latino Studies Section Book Prize and the MLA Prize in United States Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies Honorable Mention. He has also published several books of poetry, including Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor Hemisférico (2015) and Transversal (2021), both with the University of Arizona Press, the latter of which was a New York Public Library Book of the Year and was longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award. Noel has been a finalist for the National Translation Award and the Best Translated Book Award for his translations of Latin American poetry, and he is currently a translator for The Puerto Rican Literature Project (PLPR). 

Alex Santana, Intervenxions Associate Editor

is a writer and curator with an interest in conceptual art, political intervention, and public participation. Currently based in New York, she has held research positions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Newcomb Art Museum, and Mana Contemporary. Her interviews and essays have been published by CUE Art Foundation, The Brooklyn Rail, Precog Magazine, Artsy, and The Latinx Project.

Orlando Ochoa, Graduate Assistant (Events/Communications)

(they/them) is a queer, non-binary, Mexican poet and writer from the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. They are a first-generation college student and the eldest child of three. Orlando received their bachelor’s degree in African & African Diaspora Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of American Studies. Orlando’s research focuses on desert poetics, border formations, migrancy, queer desire and intimacy.

Daisy Quiñones, Graduate Assistant (Graduate Student Working Group Lead)

is a second-generation Mexican-American from Inglewood, California. She received her B.A. in English with a minor in Chicana/o & Central American Studies from UCLA, where she worked as an editor for La Gente Newsmagazine and served on the board for the Latine Film & Theatre Association. She is currently a first year PhD student in the English department at NYU. Her research interests include Black and AfroLatinx poetry and performance, incarceration literature, and representations of anger.

Isabel Saavedra-Weis, Graduate Assistant (Curatorial Team)

is a writer and PhD student from the Twin Cities, Minnesota. A proud Midwesterner, she got her start as a journalist at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, where she honed her voice writing about race, community, and belonging. She is currently pursuing a PhD in American Literature, and her work explores the written and embodied expressions of Mexican American identity in New York City. She holds a B.A. from Macalester College, where she double majored in International Studies and Spanish. She lives and works in Washington Heights.

Beyoncé Vasquéz, Undergraduate Assistant

is a Mexican journalist from the Rio Grande Valley. She is a junior at NYU studying Journalism and Latino Studies with a minor in Creative Writing and is currently an undergraduate assistant for the Latinx Project. She is passionate about intersectional feminism, print media, Latinx art, and sports.

Anthony Escamilla, Undergraduate Assistant

is a first-generation Central American from Valley Stream, New York. He is an undergraduate at NYU in the Gallatin/GPH 4+1 B.A./MPH Pathway Program. He is pursuing a concentration in Public Health Interventions, Latin American Identity, and the Ethics of Care, and will complete his MPH in Community Health Science and Practice. As a pre-PA and aspiring PhD student in medical anthropology, his career and research interests center on community-based primary care efficiency for underserved populations, emergency medicine access, and health disparities affecting Latino and immigrant communities. At NYU, he is involved in mentorship and community-building initiatives, serving as Mentorship & Inclusion Chair of the Latino Pre-Health Society (LPHS) and as founder and acting President of Central Americans For Empowerment (CAFE), where he supports underserved students and fosters spaces for cultural connection.