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, Assistant 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.

Xavier Robles Armas, Events and Arts Manager

(b.1991 Zacatecas, Mexico), is an artist and curator, based in Brooklyn by way of Santa Ana, CA. With a background in architectural studies and photography his research connects notions of migration, culturally specific leisurely practices, affect theory, philosophies of becoming, and Mexican-American literature. Previously he held various positions in museums and cultural institutions where he continues to ask what is the role of artists and institutions in inciting curiosity, play and encouraging radical imaginative action to occur.

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.

Nikki Myers, Program Assistant

is a recent graduate of NYU whose research focuses on on Latin American Women in Visual Culture, including pop culture, advertising, visual art and news media. She is a recipient of the 2022 Global Fellowship in Human Rights, with a focus on Latin American women and migrant care networks. She is currently pursuing a MA at Parsons in History of Design and Curatorial Studies.

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.

Delicia Alarcón, Graduate Student Coordinator

(she/her/ella) is a 2nd year MA student in the XE: Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement Program. She is a First-Generation Paraguayan American aka “ameriguaya” also known as Hype Tia (TM) motivating recent graduates and early career professionals to live their most authentic life. Her research aims to bring more exposure to Paraguayan History and the production of cultural art, film, and literature that analyzes the intersections of race, power, and lived experiences. Her goal is to make significant contributions to historical memory, cultural studies, and the U.S. Latina/o/e/x Transnational Border Studies.

Ana Hilda Figueroa de Jesús, Graduate Assistant

Raised in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico and currently based at El Barrio, NYC. She is pursuing an MA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and an Advanced Certificate in Museum Studies at NYU on a MacCracken Fellowship. Her research focuses on memory, affect, decolonization, subjectivities, and transnationalism in Caribbean, Latinx and Latin American Contemporary Art. A first-generation college student, she holds a BA in Art History from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus.