Former FIU professor is Costa Rican president-elect


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Costa Rica President-Elect Luis Guillermo Solís (left) with FIU President Mark B. Rosenberg on the day of the Costa Rican presidential elections April 6.

By Joel Delgado ’12 MS ’17

Former FIU professor and Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC) researcher Luis Guillermo Solís won Costa Rica’s presidential elections with a commanding 77.8 percent of the vote on April 6.

As a visiting researcher in FIU’s Latin American and Caribbean Center in 1999, Solís worked on assessing anti-gang policies and programs in the Middle Americas, providing social science research and policy analysis aimed at informing governmental and civil society efforts to mitigate the criminal youth gang problem in the region.

In 2007, President-elect Solis  co-authored a book with FIU President Mark B. Rosenberg as part of a Harvard University project titled The United States and Central America: Geopolitical Realities and Regional Fragility , a concise overview of the recent history of U.S.–Central American relations.

President Rosenberg spent election day with Solis in San Jose, Costa Rica – the nation’s capital – as the candidate traveled throughout the city to close out his successful campaign for the presidency.