Grants & Fellowships > For Stanford Faculty

Faculty Conference Grants

Faculty Conference Grants will not be available for the 2009-2010 academic year.

The faculty-led conference program offers faculty and students from Stanford as well as other institutions the opportunity to present their current research and explore topics of common intellectual concern. Events may be open to the Stanford community and the general public where appropriate.

The core goals of the program include:

The realization and development of new research ideas or the presentation of major research findings in a given area.
The exploration of ideas and issues that cross the usual disciplinary or institutional boundaries and/or themes which have an international context.
The support of collaborative research, particularly in the development of areas of research that no single researcher or institution could address alone.

All proposals must be chaired by at least one Stanford faculty member. To foster and strengthen linkages and existing connections between Latin American scholars, students and professionals, we especially welcome proposals involving Latin American colleagues and counterparts. Our annual deadline is in June for the following academic year.

For more information or to apply, please see the application form.
Please note: applications are not being accepted for the 2009-2010 academic year.

Faculty-led conferences for the 2008-09 academic year

Historicization of the Second-Order Observer
February 2009
Stanford University
Faculty Coordinator, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (Comparative Literature)

Recordar el pasado, inventar el futuro: The Personal Documentary
April 21-24, 2009
Stanford University
Faculty Coordinator, Jorge Ruffinelli (Iberian and Latin American Cultures)

Latin America and the Caribbean: Institutions, Human Capital, and Natural Resources
May 13-14, 2009
Stanford University
Faculty Coordinator, Ernesto Schargrodsky (Tinker Visiting Professor)
Co-sponsored by SCID and supported by the Tinker Foundation

Meeting on Brazilian University Reform
August 6-7, 2009
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Faculty Coordinator, Martin Carnoy (School of Education)

Faculty-led conferences for the 2007-08 academic year

New Directions in Latin American Intellectual History: The Case of Liberalism
December 5-7, 2007
Faculty Coordinator, Dr. Ivan Jaksic (OSP Santiago)

Increasing Access to Water by the Poor in Latin America: Institutional Innovations, Networks and Small Scale Providers
January 18-19, 2008
Faculty Coordinator, Dr. Len Ortolano (Civil and Environmental Engineering)
Please contact Rebeca Hwang (rebecahwang@gmail.com) for more information

Remote Electron Microscopy for In Situ Studies
March 31 - April 1, 2008
Faculty Coordinators, Dr. Guillermo Solorzano (Latin American Studies) and Dr. Robert Sinclair (Material Science)
Please contact Ai Leen Koh (alkoh@stanford.edu) for more information

This conference is supported by the Tinker Foundation.

El y Ella: The Intersection between Literature, Film, and Women's Rights in Spain and Latin America
April 16-17, 2008
Faculty Coordinator, Dr. Jorge Ruffinelli (Spanish & Portuguese)
Please contact Angela Weikel (aweikel@stanford.edu) for more information

The New Faces of Mexican Politics
April 19-20, 2008
Faculty Coordinators, Dr. Alberto Diaz-Cayeros & Dr. Beatriz Magaloni (Political Science)

Reimagining Latin American History as Iberian History
In the planning process
Faculty Coordinator, Dr. Tamar Herzog (History)

Faculty-led conferences for the 2006-07 academic year

Indigenous Peoples and Ecotourism Certification Workshop
Dr. William Durham and the Center for Ecotourism and Sustainable Development organized a workshop in Quito, Ecuador in September 2006 that brought together indigenous representatives from ecotourism initiatives around Latin America. The workshop was a great first step towards the incorporation of indigenous viewpoints into ecotourism certification.

During the workshop, participants looked at socio-cultural, environmental, and economic practices and how they relate to the question of ecotourism. Indigenous representatives felt strongly that cultural and natural resources contained within indigenous territories should be used for the self-development of the communities within those lands. The workshop resulted in a creation of a declaration document and the unilateral decision to create an indigenous tourism network of the Americas, called Intiruna (meaning “People of the Sun” in Quechua). This declaration should be seen as a directive that orients the international community on how to respect and promote indigenous rights within the tourism framework.

Wealth and Poverty in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico during the 19th century
In November 2006, Dr. Zephyr Frank organized a collaborative workshop and conference with seven regional experts on poverty and living standards in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico in the 19th century. The workshop focused on sources, methods, and future collaboration within the field. During the next day, formal papers were presented to the public. Participants discussed the usage of archival data in social science research and compared interpretations of economic growth and inequality between the aforementioned three countries and the United States.

Tropical Dry Forest Symposium
In December of 2006, Stanford University hosted a symposium entitled “Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests.” This was a joint effort between CLAS and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM), and organized by Rodolfo Dirzo and Hal Mooney. Though tropical dry forests are one of the most representative and highly endangered ecosystems in Latin America, knowledge about this ecosystem remains limited and poorly disseminated. Thus, the symposium convened prominent researchers in order to review collective knowledge and compile a central volume on the ecology and conservation of tropical dry forests.

Geophysical Imaging of Archaeological Sites
In March 2007, Dr. Amos Nur, in collaboration with several graduate students and Argentinean archaeologists, collected ground penetrating radar data in the Ambato Valley, Argentina in order to detect and characterize pre-Hispanic structures beneath the ground’s surface. This information will be extremely useful for future excavations in the area. Moreover, this work is a continuation of similar research performed at Teotihuacán, México in 2004.

Historicization of the Second-Order Observer
In conjunction with the Universidad Iberoamericana in México, Dr. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht organized workshops and seminars in Winter Quarter to explore the institutionalization of self-reflexivity in Mexico during the 19th and 20th centuries. Notions of the second-order observer originate in Europe around the 1830s but are less well known in other parts of the world. The Universidad Iberoamericana is continuing this research in the upcoming academic year with follow-up events in Mexico City.

Migration and Human Development
In collaboration with the Stanford Center for International Development, the Division of International Comparative and Area Studies, and the UN Development Programme, the Center for Latin American Studies hosted a conference on migration at Stanford on April 13-14, 2007. Topics of discussion included: migration and human development in Mexico in 2006, labor markets and migration, migration and human capital, remittances and poverty, and migration policy.

Citizenship, Revolutions, and Political Violence in the Formation of the Latin American Republics
On April 20, 2007, Dr. Hilda Sabato and Dr. Tamar Herzog brought eleven scholars together for a one-day conference that re-evaluated notions of citizenship within the formation of 19th-century republics. In the last two decades, citizenship has become a key topic in the study of the political and the intellectual history of Latin America. Sessions focused on the role of “citizens in arms” and pronunciamientos (or coup d’état) and political violence in polity formation.

This conference was supported by the Tinker Foundation.

The Archaeology of the Basin of Mexico in the Early 21st Century: Assessing the State of Current Understanding and Charting Future Research
In September 2007, Dr. Ian Robertson and Dr. L.J. Gorenflo will hold a conference on cultural evolution in the Basin of Mexico from Teotihuacán to Tenochtitlán. This event will gather 15 well-renowned archaeologists for an in-depth discussion on research to date and evaluation of unexplored topics for future investigation. Sessions will examine temporal changes in: regional settlements and their associated risks and sustainability; the organization and structure of Teotihuacán; state-level administration; and the role of economic specialization and exchange systems.

Faculty-led conferences for the 2005-06 academic year

Latin American Politics Lecture Series
Throughout the academic year, the Latin American Politics Lecture Series brought a host of imminent scholars to Bolívar House to give their perspective on the topic of Latin American politics. The series was organized by Beatriz Magaloni and Alberto Diaz-Cayeros in the Political Science Department.

II Symposium on Portuguese for Spanish Speakers: Acquisition and Teaching
The March 17-19, 2006 symposium was organized by Lyris Wiedemann, Ana Isabel Delgado, and Nicole Barraza. It was composed of two keynote speakers and nine round-tables, comprising 21 presentations that varied from an appraisal of past, present, and future of the field and the acquisition/teaching of Portuguese phonology, morphology and syntax to assessment and testing and sociolinguistic issues.

Science Policy in Latin America Symposium
On May 18, 2006 in Stanford’s Bolivar House an expert panel from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru discussed science policy in Latin America. The panel was introduced by the Center for Latin American Studies Director, Herbert S. Klein. The panel consisted of two commentators and four presenters who gave talks on aspects of science policy in their countries.

This conference was supported by the Tinker Foundation.

Workshop on Logic, Language, Information, and Computation 2006 (WoLLIC 2006)
Held over the course of four days beginning July 18, 2006, WoLLIC 2006 included both extended tutorial sessions and general lectures, given by an international panel of the world’s top experts in the fields of theoretical and applied logic, linguistics, and computer science. The close contact of the participants ensured, within the intensive workshop environment, an intimate setting in which the free and fruitful exchange of ideas could take place.

This conference was supported by the Tinker Foundation.