Departmental Faculty

Faculty in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures receive consistent recognition for their dedication to students and research. Individual members have been awarded the SUNY Distinguished Professorship (2013); Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Professional Service (2013-2014); Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching (2016-17); UB Exceptional Scholar Award (2018); President Emeritus and Mrs. Meyerson Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring (2019); Humanities Fellowships (2016-present); Dr. Nuala Drescher Award (2020);  and other esteemed leadership positions, grants and honors. 

  • Carlos Amador.

    935 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 2:00 pm-3:00 pm

    Phone: (716) 645-5614

    carlosam@buffalo.edu

    Associate Professor of Spanish
    Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    935 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 2:00 pm-3:00 pm

    Phone: (716) 645-5614

    carlosam@buffalo.edu

  • Barbara Avila-Shah.

    910 Clemens Hall

    Phone: (716) 645-0867

    bia@buffalo.edu

    Language Coordinator, Adjunct Assistant Professor in Spanish
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Sociolinguistics in Caribbean Spanish; Second language acquisition and teaching; Spanish for heritage speakers; Linguistics; Sociolinguistics; Caribbean Spanish

  • Colleen Balukas.

    931 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday, 3:00pm-3:30pm and 7:00pm-7:30 pm

    Appointment sign-up: https://calendly.com/balukas

    Phone: (716) 645-2794

    cpbaluka@buffalo.edu

    Assistant Professor of Spanish
    Department of Romance Languages and Linguistics
    College of Arts and Sciences
    Affiliated Faculty
    Department of Linguistics
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Bilingualism, pedagogy, phonology, code-switching, sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics

    931 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday, 3:00pm-3:30pm and 7:00pm-7:30 pm

    Appointment sign-up: https://calendly.com/balukas

    Phone: (716) 645-2794

    cpbaluka@buffalo.edu

  • Henry Berlin.

    911 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday, 10:00 am-11:00 am, 911 Clemens Hall

    Tuesday, 2:00 pm-4:00 pm on zoom, please email Dr. Berlin at hsberlin@buffalo.edu for zoom link

    Phone: (716) 645-2243

    rll-dus@buffalo.edu

    Director of Undergraduate Studies
    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: History and theory of the emotions; Medieval rhetoric and poetics; Literature, philosophy and theology; Iberian Studies

    911 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday, 10:00 am-11:00 am, 911 Clemens Hall

    Tuesday, 2:00 pm-4:00 pm on zoom, please email Dr. Berlin at hsberlin@buffalo.edu for zoom link

    Phone: (716) 645-2243

    rll-dus@buffalo.edu

  • Nuno Brito.

    938 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Tuesday & Thursday, 11:00 am-12:00 pm

    nunodebr@buffalo.edu

    Visiting Assistant Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Portuguese Language and Literature Creative Approaches; Lusophone Literature; Brazilian Modernismo; Contemporary Portuguese Poetry; Comparative Literature.

    938 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Tuesday & Thursday, 11:00 am-12:00 pm

    nunodebr@buffalo.edu

  • David Castillo.

    929 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    by appointment only

    Phone: (716) 645-0869

    dc63@buffalo.edu

    Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Early Modern and Baroque Studies; Spanish Golden Age; Fantasy and Horror; Cultural criticism

    929 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    by appointment only

    Phone: (716) 645-0869

    dc63@buffalo.edu

  • Laura Chiesa.

    927 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 - On leave

    Phone: (716) 645-0872

    lchiesa@buffalo.edu

    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Modern and Contemporary Italian and French Studies; Critical Theory; Architecture; Film and Visual Studies

    927 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 - On leave

    Phone: (716) 645-0872

    lchiesa@buffalo.edu

  • Colleen Culleton.

    905 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 - On leave

    Phone: (716) 645-0861

    culleton@buffalo.edu

    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Modern Spanish and Catalan literature and culture; Ecocriticism; Spatial analysis; Theories of narrative

    905 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 - On leave

    Phone: (716) 645-0861

    culleton@buffalo.edu

  • Marco Faini.

    924B Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Tuesday & Thursday, 3:20 pm-4:20 pm

    Phone: (716) 645-0149

    mfaini@buffalo.edu

    Assistant Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Early modern Italian literature and religious life; satire, comic, and mock-heroic literature; early modern doubt; history of the book; literature and the visual arts.

    924B Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Tuesday & Thursday, 3:20 pm-4:20 pm

    Phone: (716) 645-0149

    mfaini@buffalo.edu

  • Christian Flaugh.

    933 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 - On leave

    Phone: (716) 645-0879

    cflaugh@buffalo.edu

    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Artistic and Scholarly Interests: Francophone, Africana, and Caribbean studies; decolonizations and globalities; disability studies; gender studies; performance studies; subjectivity and embodied knowledge; public representation and perception

    933 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 - On leave

    Phone: (716) 645-0879

    cflaugh@buffalo.edu

  • Amy Graves Monroe.

    Office Hours - Spring 2023

    Monday, 9:00 am-10:00 am; Wednesday, 1:00 pm-2:00pm;

    or by appointment

    924 Clemens Hall

    Phone: (716) 645-0880

    acgraves@buffalo.edu

    Chair
    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Wars of Religion; Print Culture and History of the Book; Early Modern Philosophy and Political Thought; Satire and Irony; Intellectual History and Literary Theory

    Office Hours - Spring 2023

    Monday, 9:00 am-10:00 am; Wednesday, 1:00 pm-2:00pm;

    or by appointment

    924 Clemens Hall

    Phone: (716) 645-0880

    acgraves@buffalo.edu

  • Jorge Guitart.
    Professor Emeritus
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Principles and Processes Phonology; Vowel coalescence in Spanish; Dialectal variation in the perception of English vowels by Spanish speakers; Role and case in Spanish nominals; Cleft constructions in Latin American Spanish

  • Fabiola Henri.

    907 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Thursday, 3:00pm-5:00pm

    Phone: (716) 645-0933

    fabiolah@buffalo.edu

    Assistant Professor of Linguistics
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences
    Adjunct Assistant Professor
    Department of Linguistics
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Research Interests: Creole Languages; Descriptive & Theoretical Linguistics; Linguistic Typology; Extensible Lexical databases and Corpora; Experimental data; Language Change; Language Acquisition; Morphological Complexity

    907 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Thursday, 3:00pm-5:00pm

    Phone: (716) 645-0933

    fabiolah@buffalo.edu

  • Maureen Jameson.

    901 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Please contact Dr. Jameson at jameson@buffalo.edu to schedule an appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-0860

    jameson@buffalo.edu

    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: 19th, 20th and 21st century French literature and society; Digital Humanities; French history; Cognitive Science; Science and society

    901 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Please contact Dr. Jameson at jameson@buffalo.edu to schedule an appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-0860

    jameson@buffalo.edu

  • Melissa Mccarron.

    938 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday, 1:00 pm-2:30 pm via zoom

    Tuesday, 12:00 pm-1:00 pm in person or via zoom

    link to schedule: https://calendly.com/mjmccarr

    or by appointment

    mjmccarr@buffalo.edu

    Clinical Assistant Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Teaching and Research Interests: All levels of Spanish language, literature, and composition. Spanish for special purposes. Experiential and active learning strategies. Inclusion and accessibility in the language classroom. Twentieth- and twenty-first century Peninsular Spanish Literature and Culture. Minority Languages. Catalan Poetry and Narrative. Gender and Sexuality Studies. Poetics. Inter-arts Studies. Critical Theory.

    938 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday, 1:00 pm-2:30 pm via zoom

    Tuesday, 12:00 pm-1:00 pm in person or via zoom

    link to schedule: https://calendly.com/mjmccarr

    or by appointment

    mjmccarr@buffalo.edu

  • Fernanda Negrete.

    921 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Thursday, 1:00 pm-1:50 pm or by appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-2244

    fnegrete@buffalo.edu

    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences
    Director
    Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis & Culture
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Literature and the Other Arts; Psychoanalysis, Modern Literatures (in French, Portuguese, Spanish, English) and Philosophy; Sexuality Studies and Critical Theory; Women Writers and Film Directors; Art, Art Theory, and Aesthetics; the Ethics of Psychoanalysis and Schizoanalysis; Environmental Art.

    921 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Thursday, 1:00 pm-1:50 pm or by appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-2244

    fnegrete@buffalo.edu

  • Emanuela Pecchioli.

    926 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday and Wednesday, 9:50 am-11:00 am

    or by appointment

    Meetings can either be in person or zoom.

    Phone: (716) 645-2191

    epecchio@buffalo.edu

    Clinical Assistant Professor of Italian
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    926 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday and Wednesday, 9:50 am-11:00 am

    or by appointment

    Meetings can either be in person or zoom.

    Phone: (716) 645-2191

    epecchio@buffalo.edu

  • Justin Read.

    925 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday and Friday, 10:30 am-11:30 am

    Phone: (716) 645-0878

    jread2@buffalo.edu

    Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese
    Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Urbanization and Modernization of Latin America since 1850; Critical Border Studies; Political Theory; Latin American Cultural Theory; Post-Humanism and Media Theory; 19th and 20th century Latin American literature and culture; Critical theory; Poetics; Modernism and Avant-Garde; Argentina; Brazil; Mexico

    925 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday and Friday, 10:30 am-11:30 am

    Phone: (716) 645-0878

    jread2@buffalo.edu

  • Adrián Rodríguez-Riccelli.

    923 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Wednesday, 3:00pm-5:00pm

    or by appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-3820

    arriccel@buffalo.edu

    Assistant Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Variationist socio-linguistics; Contact linguistics; Morphosyntax; Language change; Afro-diasporic Romance vernaculars; Pidgin & Creole languages; Spanish in the United States; Multilingualism

    923 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Wednesday, 3:00pm-5:00pm

    or by appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-3820

    arriccel@buffalo.edu

  • Elizabeth Scarlett.

    913 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Thursday, 1:00 pm-2:00pm in person, zoom appointments also available.

    Phone: (716) 645-0873

    scarlett@buffalo.edu

    Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Modern and Contemporary Spanish Peninsular Literature and Film; Romanticism; Realism; Avant garde movements; Feminism

    913 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Thursday, 1:00 pm-2:00pm in person, zoom appointments also available.

    Phone: (716) 645-0873

    scarlett@buffalo.edu

  • Stephanie Schmidt.

    909 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday and Wednesday, 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm

    Phone: (716) 645-0864

    ss573@buffalo.edu

    Assistant Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Colonial Latin American literature; Nahuatl Studies; Early Modern Spanish literature

    909 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday and Wednesday, 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm

    Phone: (716) 645-0864

    ss573@buffalo.edu

  • Adam Schoene.

    603 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Tuesday, 12:30 pm-2:00 pm, 3:30 pm-4:00 pm; or by appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-4620

    schoene3@buffalo.edu

    Visiting Assistant Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    603 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Tuesday, 12:30 pm-2:00 pm, 3:30 pm-4:00 pm; or by appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-4620

    schoene3@buffalo.edu

  • Jean-Jacques Thomas.
    Professor Emeritus
    UB Distinguished Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Poetry and Poetics; Formal Plasticity; Linguistics; Semiotics; 19th and 20th century French literature, culture and film; European Modernism; Quebec and Canadian Studies; Francophonie in North America

  • Paola Ugolini.

    915 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday and Friday, 1:00 pm-2:00 pm

    Phone: (716) 645-0865

    rll-dgs@buffalo.edu

    Director of Graduate Studies
    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Early modern Italian literature, culture and conduct manuals; Satire; Chivalric poems; Gender studies

    915 Clemens Hall

    Spring 2023 office hours

    Monday and Friday, 1:00 pm-2:00 pm

    Phone: (716) 645-0865

    rll-dgs@buffalo.edu

  • Margarita Vargas.
    Associate Professor Emerita
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Contemporary Spanish-American theatre; Mexican film; Feminisms