Tinker Grantees

News Release, January 30, 2017

University of Oregon is Now a Tinker University

The Board of Directors of the Tinker Foundation approved a matching grant of $10,000—renewable for three years—to the University of Oregon to initiate a Tinker Field Research Grants Program within the Center for Latino/a & Latin American Studies (CLLAS). Thanks to matching funds being contributed from the UO Office of Academic Affairs and the Graduate School, CLLAS will have $20,000 available each of three years to sponsor graduate student research.

The Tinker Field Research Grants are open to students across all academic disciplines and graduate degree programs. The grants are to assist master’s and doctoral students with travel and field-related expenses for brief periods of field research in Latin America. A detailed call for proposals will be available soon on the CLLAS website.

CLLAS interim director Gabriela Martínez, an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, expressed her delight at the award. “First, I would like to thank CLLAS executive board members who teamed up to produce a highly competitive proposal—Eli Meyer from CLLAS, Erin Beck from political science, Pedro García-Caro from romance languages and Latin American studies, and Lori O’Hollaren from the Global Studies Institute, as well as Lynn Stephen from anthropology and Carlos Aguirre from history. This grant recognizes the growth and strength of CLLAS as a research center that with very limited resources has been promoting and funding excellent graduate student and faculty research. The grant will serve as seed money to enhance CLLAS’s support for graduate student research in Latin America.”

Over the past five years, CLLAS has received 70 applications from graduate students from fields as diverse as music, architecture, sociology, philosophy, psychology, linguistics, biological anthropology, political science, history, journalism and communications, and romance languages.  Of these, CLLAS has contributed funds to support 23 students’ travels to locations in the United States, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador.  There are currently at least 30 graduate students in residence at the UO conducting doctoral research in the area of Latin American studies in various departments.

The University of Oregon joins a short list of prestigious universities that currently administer Tinker Field Research Grant Programs, including UCLA, UC Berkeley, Brown University, Columbia University, and Indiana University.

Pedro García-Caro, director of the UO Latin American Studies Program, said that he looks forward “to working on these further and moving on now to putting forward a graduate certificate in Latin American studies that will greatly complement these grants.”

• 2017-18 Tinker Grantees
• 2018-19 Tinker Grantees
• 2019-20 Tinker Grantees
  • “Recalling Runaways: Studies of Slavery and Absenteeism in Cuba.” Aziza Baker, History. 
  • “Nepantleres: LGBTQ+ Migrants’ Transborder Experiences.” Polet Campos-Melchor, Anthropology.
  • “Transmission of Traditional Botanical Knowledge Among the Shuar of Amazonian Ecuador.” Sara Khatib, Anthropology.
  • “A Case Study of Two Guatemalan Organizations Demanding Justice for the 41 girls.” Carla Osorio Veliz, Geography. 
  • “Small-Scale Farmers’ Vulnerability to Climatic Changes in the Chinantec Region, Mexico.” Adriana Uscanga Castillo, Geography. 
  • “Electoral Revolutions: A Comparative Study of Rapid Changes in Electoral Participation.” Alberto Lioy, Political Science.