Dear friends of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies,
I hope you all had a pleasant summer and a productive fall. Let me start this brief note by sharing some exciting personnel updates within the SPS community. At the start of the fall semester, we welcomed two new Spanish faculty members (María Laura Mecías and Philip Allen), celebrated the promotion of Quinn Hansen, Ph.D., to the rank of associate instructional professor and admitted seven new teaching assistants into our graduate program (María Colón, María de la Cruz Mora, Fabián Fuentes, Alex Menager, Zachary Mott, Matthew Scholar and Dairen Zamora).
UF’s leadership is still in a transitional phase. Interim President Donald W. Landry and interim Dean Kevin Ingersent are now at the helm of the university and our college, respectively. Amid these shifts, SPS remains steadfastly committed to teaching, researching and celebrating the languages and cultures of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world, as shown in the stories compiled for this newsletter.
This fall 2025 issue features updates on the professional accomplishments of our faculty and students, profiles of our new colleagues and distinguished alumni and examples of our department’s engagement with AI and experiential learning (including study abroad and community service). You will also read about SPS’s celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and our major event, which showcased our department’s wide-ranging curricular offerings to more than 500 undergraduate students — with UF mascots Albert and Alberta in attendance! If you would like to support our academic mission, please consider a donation to the Spanish and Portuguese Studies Fund during the Gator Nation Giving Day, which will take place on Feb. 19, 2026.
I hope you enjoy a safe, healthy and happy holiday season in the company of your loved ones, and I wish you all the best for the New Year.
Saludos cordiales / cordiais saudações,
Luis Álvarez-Castro