Meet the Madrid Faculty

Classes offered through the Madrid Program are taught by local faculty, the Center Director, and by one Stanford Faculty-in-Residence per quarter. Many local professors hold regular appointments at Spanish universities. Courses are taught in Spanish unless otherwise noted.

Faculty in Residence

Each quarter, one Stanford professor serves as Faculty in Residence in each of the BOSP program locations. These faculty teach classes in their own disciplines, developing courses that incorporate unique features of the local culture and environment or that provide comparative perspectives on a particular topic. View a list of current and future faculty.

Local Faculty

María Almudena Ariza Armada

Almudena Ariza has completed doctoral studies in Numismatics and received her PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She has received scholarships from both Spanish and international institutions to conduct research in Spain as well as European and Arabic countries and currently collaborates with several U.S. university programs in Madrid. Almudena has participated in national and international symposia and is the author of several articles on Islamic Numismatics as well as various academic websites that have been recognized and recommended by the international academic community. Her last book, De Barcelona a Orán. Las emisiones monetales a nombre de los califas Ḥammūdíes de al-Andalus, wan the Jury Prize Javier Conde Garriga 2015

Alberto Bosco

Alberto is a composer, pianist, and music critic. Originally from Italy, he completed his Composition Degree and Piano Performance Degree at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Torino and received a Degree in Music History and a PhD in Comparative Literatures and Cultures from the Università di Torino.  He has received multiple grants and scholarships both as a student and as a professor, including a Fulbright Visiting Scholar appointment at Columbia University, the "Luigi and Eleonora Ronga" Award for musicological studies from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome and a research grant from the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel. Based in Madrid, he serves as a foreign correspondent for the Italian-language news outlets Il Giornale della Musica and Il Corriere Musicale, and writes for the Spanish music magazine Scherzo. As an essayist and lecturer he is regularly invited by the some of the most important Italian concert societies (Orchestra Nazionale della RAI, Unione Musicale) and opera theaters (Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Teatro Regio di Torino, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari). In addition to performing, Alberto also teaches at Saint Louis University's Madrid campus and has lectured at the Cursos de Verano de la Universidad Complutense.

Aida Bueno Sarduy

PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Cum Laude. Dissertation: “The Decline of Women’s Priestly Leadership in Xangô of Recife: The City of Women That Will Not Be”. Department of Anthropology, School of Political Science and Sociology, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Spain. Specialization in culture of the African Diaspora in Latin America and interethnic relations at the Cándido Mendes University, Center for Afro Asiatic Studies, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Researcher of the Center for Studies on Migration and Racism of 1999-2009, Faculty of Statistics, Universidad Complutense. She is currently developing studies on the leadership of women in Afro-descendant religions and is investigating Letters of liberty and contracts for the sale of slave women in Brazil, nineteenth century.

Miguel Buñuel

Miguel holds both a PhD in Geography from Boston University and a PhD in Economics from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where he is currently Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics and Public Finance.  He has a broad experience teaching at U.S. and Spanish universities, including as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University and Boston University.  He has close to 30 years of researching and consulting experience on environmental economics and policy, and public economics.  Additionally, he has served as Economic Advisor to Spain’s Minister for the Environment, and worked for the World Bank and the European Commission, among other jobs and positions.  Miguel continues to publish actively, and he also participates in conferences throughout the World.

María Teresa Camblor Portilla

Maite received her PhD in Spanish Linguistics from Georgetown University. She has served as a language instructor at various U.S. universities, including Georgetown University.  She has also collaborated on several language instruction books and has served as an educational advisor to the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C.  Currently, as a full-time lecturer, she teaches and coordinates the Spanish language courses at the Stanford University BOSP in Madrid where she also manages the programs with Spanish students. In addition, she collaborates with other U.S. programs in Spain as well as several Spanish institutions, including the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, the Universidad de Oviedo and the Ministry of Education.

Pablo Campos Calvo Sotelo

Is a PhD Architect, PhD in Education, Academic-Royal Academy of Doctors and Full Professor of the Universidad CEU-San Pablo. He is the author of 16 books about University Spaces, together with a large number of articles in international Reviews, In 2010 and 2012 he received the Research Awards “Ángel Herrera” for his research works. Dr. Campos is the author of the concept of “Educational Campus” for the innovation of University campuses. He has been a consultant to the Ministry of Education in Spain for the Program “Campus of International Excellence” (2008-2011). Since 1990, professor Campos has designed university spaces. In 2012, Dr. Campos was recipient of the International “Education Leadership Award”, by World Education Congress (Mumbai, India)

Jean Castejon Gilabert

Holds a degree in Franco-Spanish Philology from the Sorbonne University in Paris and a Master's Degree in Visual Anthropology from Denis Diderot University in Paris. As a filmmaker-teacher he collaborates with Hamilton College in the United States (State of New York) and with its program in Madrid, HCAYS. He also teaches and creates documentary film workshops in different Spanish institutions (Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid Film Institute, TAI School, SGAE, Institute of Fine Arts of Madrid, Conde Duque Cultural Center, Casa Encendida and several Spanish Cultural Centers of Latin America). He also collaborates with Latin American institutions of international renown (Casa Comal Film School of Guatemala City, San Antonio de los Baños International Film School of Cuba, Filmoteca de Quito, Cartagena de las Indias International Film Festival, FUNGLODE de Santo Institution Sunday). His cinematographic works, documentaries focused on the theme of portraiture and historical memory, have been selected in several international festivals.

Raúl de la Fuente Marcos

Is a Spanish astronomer and a member of the American Astronomical Society. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physics (Astrophysics) from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) with a thesis entitled Dynamical Evolution of Open Star Clusters that received the UCM Ph.D. Thesis Prize Award for Outstanding Research. Raul has collaborated with several U.S. universities in Madrid and

he is currently a member of the Spanish team of WSO-UV, an International project to put an ultraviolet telescope in space. He studies galactic, stellar and Solar System dynamics, and his research interests include numerical simulations and data mining. He has helped to identify multiple co-orbital companions of Venus, Earth, Mars, Uranus and Neptune, including several quasi-satellites of our own planet. Raul has coauthored several studies on near-Earth asteroids and impacts, and multiple papers on the subject of the existence of planets beyond Pluto. Nature, Science, New Scientist, Newsweek and Time, among others, have featured highlights from his results during the last five years. His publications include eighty-five papers in International peer reviewed journals.

Julia Doménech López

Dr. Julia Doménech completed her Ph.D. (Magna cum Laude) at the Universidad Autónoma Madrid (1997) and has been Associate Professor at its Art History Department (2007-2010). Since 1998 Dr. Doménech has taught at New York University Madrid and, at present, she also teaches at B.O.S.P. in Madrid program.

She has written extensively on painting and the visual arts, especially in the long Nineteenth Century concentrating on gender issues, text image relations and visual knowledge. Her book La belleza pétrea y la belleza líquida. El sujeto femenino en la poesía y las artes victorianas. (Petrified Beauty and Liquid beauty. The female subject in Victorian Poetry and Visual Arts) was published in 2010 (Editorial Fundamentos). Currently she is completing a new book on the construction of visual space in the Nineteenth Century.

Sylvia L. Hilton

Is a professor of American History at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She specializes in Spanish Colonial North America and U.S. History. She serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals and is a Contributing International Editor for the Journal of American History. Her extensive publications include contributions on frontiers, collective identities, mobility, travel literature, and political repression in U.S. History, on Spanish-U.S. relations, and on Spaniards in colonial and revolutionary-era North America.

Miguel Larrañaga Zulueta

Miguel holds his bachelor degree in Philosophy from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, a master in Paleography from the Universidad de Navarra, and a Doctorate in Medieval History from the Universidad de Deusto. His published works include a large number of books, magazine articles, and seminars about the social and cultural history of the Middle Ages. His last book is titled: “Palabra, Imagen, Poder: Enseñar el Orden en la Edad Media” (2105). He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford (UK), at the Institut für Franziskanische Geschichte (Germany), and at the Hill Manuscript Library-St John’s University (USA). Currently he is Vice-Rector for Student Affairs and professor at Instituto de Empresa University, and Director of the IEU Antiquity & Middle Ages Research Center.

Laura Luceño Casals

Has a PhD in philology from the University of Perpignan (France), having done a thesis on fashion. She obtained a DEA in Audiovisual Communication at the Complutense University of Madrid. Her field of research is the history of costume and fashion, as well as the analysis of the catwalk.

She has taught at several universities, including her course on Spanish and international fashion in the Bing Program at Stanford University in Madrid. She has been part of the Scientific Committee and organizer of the First International Fashion Congress in Madrid, CIM 2008. For five consecutive years she was the Secretary of Fashion Summer Courses of the Polytechnic University of Madrid, as well as in the Rey Juan Carlos University. She has collaborated in several fashion magazines such as El País Semanal, Vogue, Woman, S-MODA, YoDona and Marie Claire.

She has been part of the organizing team of the CSDMM Tributes to Elio Berhanyer, Jesús del Pozo and Enrique Loewe. She is currently in charge of Institutional Relations and Professor of the Centro Superior de Diseño de Moda de Madrid, where she also participates in the organization of fashion shows and exhibitions.

Irene Martín Cortés

Is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). She holds a Phd by the Juan March Institute and UAM. Her main lines of research and publications deal with elections, political parties and political culture in Spain in comparative perspective, Greek politics, and young people and politics. Her latest publications include How does the Spanish 'crisis generation' relate to politics? in

 Thijssen, P., Siongers, J., Van Laer, J., Haers, J. & Mels, S. (eds.) Political Engagement of the Young in “Europe: Youth in the Crucible. Routledge (2016), together with G. García-Albacete and J. Lorente; and El Referéndum del “No” en Grecia.  Una consulta de dimensiones internacionales in Biglino, P. (ed.) “Partidos políticos y mediaciones de la democracia directa”. CEPC (2016). She has been visiting researcher at the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University, the University of Athens, the Université de Montreal and the Hellenic Observatory at the LSE, and visiting teacher at Sciences Po Bordeaux. Currently, she coordinates the Spanish research team of the H2020 project REPAST, as well as the MA in Democracy and Government and the Erasmus Mundus MA in South European Studies at UAM.

Laura Murcia Cánovas

Laura began her training as a professional flamenco dancer during her early childhood, studying at various schools of Danza española in Cartagena, Murcia. Later, in Madrid, she continued her studies at the renowned flamenco school Amor de Dios with professors such as Cristobal Reyes, Antonio Canales, and Merche Esmeralda.  She has danced on diverse stages both as a soloist and as a member of dance companies such as Compañía de Rafael Aguilar, Ballet de Carmen Romero, or Teatro Español de Madrid. Laura holds a degree in Performing Arts and an M.A. in Scenic Arts from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. She has over twenty years of teaching experience in various cultural centers, dance schools and study abroad programs.

Alicia Pérez Blanco

Holds a PhD, MD in Critical Care Medicine as well as a degree in Medicine, both from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.  She also has a Master Degree in Bioethics from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. At present, Alicia is a physician working for the National Transplant Organization (ONT) in charge of pediatric organ donation, bioethics committee and heart transplantation. She is actively involved in research and publication, contributing to journals such as Intensive Care Medicine, Therapeutic Updates in Cardiology and the Journal of Medical Ethics.  She regularly participates in conferences and courses both nationally and internationally, with recent highlights including a clinical bioethics course for medical professionals at Harvard’s Medical School (2012) and a summer program through The Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics at Yale University (2013).

Beatriz Pérez Galán

Is a Professor in the the National Distance Education University (UNED). She is PhD in Social Anthropology from Complutense University of Madrid (1999) and completed pre-doctorate studies at University of London and pos-doctorate studies at The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). She has been Visiting Professor at universities and research centers in South America and collaborated with different US universities study abroad programs in Madrid. From 1994 the main center of attention of her ethnographic research is focused on clichés in relation with the study of ethnic and cultural identities construction in indigenous communities in the Andes (Peru, Bolivia and Colombia.)

Pedro Perez-Leal

Pedro J. Pérez Leal has been the director of the Stanford Center in Madrid since 2016. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature and Cultural Studies from Georgetown University. Pedro also took postgraduate courses in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology at UAM. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the intersection between culture and disease. His study-abroad experience includes serving as Assistant Director of the Georgetown University Summer Program in Ecuador, Academic Coordinator of the Hamilton College Program in Madrid and Associate Director of the Suffolk University Madrid Campus. Pedro has taught a wide variety of language, culture and literature courses. Pedro’s courses at the Stanford Center in Madrid are titled “Philosophy and Literature of Travel” and “Introduction to Spanish Culture”.

Óscar Sánchez Fuster

Óscar has completed doctoral courses in Drawing and Etching, Teaching, Research, and Creativity at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.  An active artist, his work is a “reflection of his own personal experiences and emotions transformed to communicate universal messages.”  When painting, he works with combinations of acrylic, oils, and encaustic mediums.  In his sculptures he works with wood, polyester, latex and iron.  Óscar has participated in individual and group exhibitions throughout Spain, France, and Portugal and often creates artwork for use in marketing and advertising campaigns.  As a professor, he collaborates with several U.S. university programs in Madrid and also teaches as a guest lecturer in local Spanish institutions.

Almendra Staffa-Healey