Cuba’s transition of power experts

On April 19, 2018, Raul Castro will step down as Cuba’s leader, ending nearly six decades of his family’s rule over the island nation. The transition of power opens up many questions about the future of the Caribbean island. FIU experts are available to discuss and analyze this change in leadership and what it could mean for the people of Cuba and the world.

For help reaching FIU’s Cuba experts, please contact:

• • Maydel Santana, assistant vice president of communication: 305-348-1555, santanam@fiu.edu
  • Madeline Baro, associate director: 305-310-9665, mbaro@fiu.edu
  • Jessica Drouet, senior account manager: 305-348-6944, jdrouet@fiu.edu
  • Dianne Fernandez, broadcast media manager: 305-608-4870, dfernand37@fiu.edu
  • Amy Ellis, communications manager, Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs: 352-999-0577, amy.ellis@fiu.edu

SOCIAL/POLITICAL ANALYSIS 
Jorge Duany
Jorge Duany is director of the Cuban Research Institute and a professor of anthropology. Before coming to FIU, he served as acting dean of the College of Social Sciences and professor of anthropology at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. He previously served as director of UPR’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology and director of the journal Revista de Ciencias Sociales. Duany has published extensively on migration, ethnicity, race, nationalism, and transnationalism in Cuba, the Caribbean and the United States. He is available for Spanish language interviews.
Email: joduany@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-7274

Frank Mora 
Frank Mora is the director of the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center. Prior to coming to FIU, Mora served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere. During the last twenty years Mora worked as a consultant to the Library of Congress, U.S. Department of the Air Force, Department of the Army, and U.S. State Department, among many others. Mora is the author or editor of five books and numerous academic and policy articles, book chapters, and monographs on hemispheric security, Cuban politics and military, U.S.-Latin American relations, civil-military relations, and Latin American foreign policy. He is a recipient of the Outstanding Public Service Award, Department of Defense (2011). He is available for Spanish language interviews.
Email: moraf@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-2894

Eduardo Gamarra
Political science Professor Eduardo Gamarra has done research on the regional dynamics of Latin America, including Cuba’s role. As an expert on Bolivia and the Andean region, he has followed closely the alliances formed by the Castro brothers, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Venezuelan leaders. In February 2016, he was appointed founding director of the Latino Public Opinion Forum. Gamarra has also studied drug trafficking in the Caribbean and the effects of American policies in the regional dynamics. He has testified in front of the U.S. Congress several times and is the author of more than half a dozen books and more than forty academic articles on Latin America. He is available for Spanish language interviews.
Email: Eduardo.Gamarra@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-1718
Cell: 786-253-4898

Brian Latell
Brian Latell is an adjunct professor at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy who served 35 years with the CIA and National Intelligence Council, advising the White House and Congress on Latin American and the Caribbean. He frequently advised U.S. and foreign government policy making organizations and leaders, including presidents and ministers. He has authored several books on Cuba and Fidel Castro, including History Will Absolve Me: Fidel Castro: Life and Legacy (2016) and After Fidel: Raul Castro and the Future of Cuba’s Revolution (2005). Before coming to FIU, he taught Latin America and American foreign policy at Georgetown University and was a Senior Research Associate in Cuba studies at the University of Miami.
Email: brian.latell@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-2977

Michael Bustamante
Michael J. Bustamante is assistant professor of Latin American history, specializing in modern Cuba, Cuban America and the Caribbean. Bustamante’s current book project, “Cuban Counterpoints: Memory Struggles in Revolution and Exile,” tracks clashes over Cuban collective and historical memory in the wake of the 1959 Revolution. He is co-editor of the volume, “New Histories of the Cuban Revolution,” currently under contract with Duke University Press. Bustamante previously served as a research associate for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. He comments frequently on contemporary Cuban and Cuban-American affairs for publications like Foreign Affairs and media outlets like Al-Jazeera America. Since 2013, he has served as a study leader for the Smithsonian Institution’s people-to-people trips to Cuba.
Email: mbustama@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-2035

Guillermo Grenier
Sociology Professor Guillermo Grenier has been one of the lead researchers in charge of the FIU Cuba Poll FIU, which he has been conducting since 1991. The poll measures the attitudes and opinions of Cuban-Americans in South Florida on issues ranging from their support for the U.S. embargo, to their party preference. In addition to the poll, he is the author of books such as “Miami Now: Immigration, Ethnicity and Social Change;” “Legacy of Exile: Cubans in the United States;” and “This Land is Our Land: Newcomers and Established Residents in Miami,” in which he is a co-author. He has also written numerous articles on labor and ethnic issues in the United States. He is available for Spanish language interviews.
Email: Guillermo.Grenier@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-3217
Home: 305-388-6469

Brian Fonseca
Brian Fonseca is director of the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at FIU’s Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs. He joined FIU after serving as the senior research manager for socio-cultural analysis at United States Southern Command. Fonseca can address the role and importance of the Cuban military, as well as political and international relations matters related to Cuba and the region.
Email: fonsecab@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-7420
Cell: 305-218-6323

Randy Pestana
Randy Pestana serves as a senior policy analyst at FIU’s Gordon Institute, where he is tasked with coordinating the Academic-Defense partnership with U.S. Southern Command and supporting the execution of the institute’s cybersecurity programs. The majority of his work has been linked to governance and security in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a particular focus on transnational organized crime, terrorism, rule of law, and gangs. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor for FIU’s Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs and FIU’s Honors College. He is available for Spanish language interviews.
Email: rpestana@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-0114

Hugh Gladwin
Hugh Gladwin, associate professor in FIU’s Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies, has been one of the lead researchers of the FIU Cuba Poll since 1991. The poll’s questions range from whether exiles would consider going back to Cuba, to their attitudes on the United States’ embargo on the island. Gladwin is professor of sociology and anthropology and concentrates on statistical analysis of opinions and political trends. His work also includes analysis of sociological impacts of hurricanes and consumer preferences.
Email: gladwin@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-7420

Danielle Clealand
Danielle Clealand’s research examines comparative racial politics, group consciousness, black public opinion and racial inequality with a focus on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and the United States. Her book, The Power of Race in Cuba: Racial Ideology and Black Consciousness during the Revolution, examines racial ideology and the institutional mechanisms that support racial inequality in Cuba. Clealand has taught courses such as Caribbean Politics, Black Politics in the Americas, Latin American Politics and Race and Politics in the United States. Before joining the faculty at Florida International University, she was a visiting fellow at the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the recipient of the McKnight Junior Faculty Fellowship for the 2017-2018 academic year. She is available for Spanish language interviews.
Email: dclealan@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-3295

DISSIDENTS/ HUMAN RIGHTS
Sebastian Arcos
Sebastian Arcos is the assistant director of the Cuban Research Institute. Arco’s father and uncle were active participants in Castro’s revolutionary movement and briefly held important governmental positions, but were soon disillusioned by the new regime’s totalitarian nature. His entire family was arrested and sent to prison for attempting to leave Cuba illegally in 1981. In 1987 he joined the Cuban Committee for Human Rights (CCPDH), the first independent Cuban human rights organization, and was part of the CCPDH team that met with the Special Group from the UN Commission on Human Rights who visited the island in 1988.  He was finally allowed to leave Cuba in 1992.  For three consecutive years (1995, 1996, 1997) he was part of the Freedom House delegation to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland.  He later advised the U.S. Department of State on issues concerning human rights in Cuba between 1998 and 2000. He is available for Spanish language interviews.
Email: Sebastian.Arcos@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-7250
Cell: 305-431-4576

Juan Carlos Gómez
Juan Carlos Gómez is director of the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic. He has been defending the rights of individuals in immigration matters for the last twenty years. During this time, he has represented persons before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the United States Departments of Justice and Homeland Security in complex immigration matters. Within the field of immigration law, he has helped thousands of individuals in situations including removal and deportation proceedings, family immigration, and the transfer of professionals and executives to the United States. Mr. Gómez counsels international and national corporations on compliance with immigration laws. He also has coordinated teams of attorneys in multi-forum conflicts to effectively resolve clients’ problems. As an attorney for a Central American Refugee Project, he coordinated the representation of thousands individuals in the Southeastern United States in a national class action. He has represented refugees from every part of the world where there have been conflicts over the last two decades. As director of East Little Havana Legal Services, he led a team of attorneys to resolve the series of problems faced by clients in a holistic manner. Mr. Gómez is a highly sought out attorney by other immigration attorneys for consultation on complex matters. In addition to having taught at a law school, he frequently lectures on immigration matters before professional organizations.
Email: cagomez@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-3179

THE ECONOMY/ THE LAW
Jorge Salazar-Carrillo
Economics Professor Jorge Salazar-Carrillo is director of FIU’s Center of Economic Research. Salazar is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a consultant for both the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). His areas of interest include economic integration, international trade and finance and labor economics. He has published various books on Cuba and its economy. He has also conducted research on Venezuela’s oil sector and Latin America’s capital markets in the 1990s. He is available for Spanish language interviews.
Email: Jorge.Salazar-Carrillo@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-3283
Cell: 305-915-0063

Jose Gabilondo
Law Professor Jose Gabilondo has done research on the Cuban Central Bank, expropriation claims settlements, Cuba’s embargo loss claims against the U.S., and foreign investment in Cuba. Gabilondo has conducted field research in Havana and Santiago, Cuba. He has also worked with the U.S. Treasury and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and has studied the impact of the research travel bans to Cuba. He is available for Spanish language interviews.
Email: Jose.Gabilondo@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-5943
Cell: 305-710-5656

TRANSITION/ CUBAN MILITARY 
Marifeli Perez-Stable
A professor of sociology in the Department of Global & Sociocultural Studies in the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs, Marifeli Pérez-Stable has published widely on Cuban and Latin American politics. Most recently, she authored “The United States and Cuba: Intimate Enemies” (2011) and “The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy,” 3^rd edition (2012). From 2004 to 2009, she served as vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C. She chaired the Task Force on Memory, Truth, and Justice which issued the 2003 report, “Cuban National Reconciliation.” She is available for Spanish language interviews.
Email: marifeli.perez-stable@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-2258
Cell: 305-793-8974

Brian Fonseca
Brian Fonseca is director of the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at FIU’s Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs. With nearly 20 years’ experience in military affairs, Fonseca served as a defense intelligence analyst at United States Southern Command. His work focuses on general security trends and he has published on transnational organized crime, extra hemispheric actors (China, Russia, and Iran), institutional crisis in Latin America (prisons, police, and militaries), political instability and governance in the Americas.
Email: fonsecab@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-7420
Cell: 305-218-6323