Hunter College Names Yomaira Figueroa Director of CENTRO

NEW YORK, NY | HUNTER COLLEGE | June 27, 2023 - Hunter College has appointed distinguished Afro-Puerto Rican writer, teacher, and scholar Yomaira Figueroa as the director of CENTRO, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, President Jennifer J. Raab announced.

“We are so pleased that CENTRO will be led by Yomaira Figueroa, a talented historian and teacher with a body of research worthy of this important institute,” President Raab said. “After a nationwide search, we found that she was far and away the most impressive leader, and we’re confident she will bring CENTRO to new heights during its 50th year and beyond.”

“CUNY and CENTRO are fortunate to be able to welcome Yomaira C. Figueroa, an accomplished scholar who has advanced our understanding of Puerto Rican history, literature, and activism, and a dedicated educator with a passion for empowering her students,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “Dr. Figueroa will take the helm at an exciting period in the evolution of CENTRO, which will begin its second half-century by expanding its archive, library and exhibition space and its presence in El Barrio, one of New York’s most vibrant Puerto Rican communities.”

CUNY Trustee Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, who was on the search committee, lauded Figueroa’s talents.

“Not only is Yomaira a brilliant scholar and electrifying teacher,” CortésVázquez said. “I am confident she will continue to advance Puerto Rican economic and political issues through scholarship and advocacy.”

Figueroa said she was thrilled to come to CENTRO.

“I am honored to serve as director and to work alongside the exceptional CENTRO staff as we attend to some of the most pressing needs of the Puerto Rican community across the archipelago and the diaspora,” said Figueroa, now an associate professor of English at Michigan State University. “CENTRO is a critical part of our cultural and intellectual heritage and I’m looking forward to continuing its groundbreaking legacy of fostering research, programming, arts, and community outreach.”

Figueroa succeeds Interim Director Yarimar Bonilla, CENTRO’s first female director who will now become a professor at the Princeton University Effron Center for the Study of America.

“We are so grateful to Dr. Bonilla for her inspiring vision,” President Raab said.

“We thank outgoing Interim Director Yarimar Bonilla for her strong stewardship, and wish her the best in the next chapter of her exceptional career,” said Chancellor Rodríguez, who served as the center’s director from 2000–2005.

Figueroa is the author of the award-winning Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature (Northwestern, 2020) and the forthcoming The Survival of a People (Duke University Press). She has published work in journals including Hypatia, Decolonization, CENTRO, Small Axe, Frontiers, Hispanofilia, Contemporânea, Post 45 Contemporaries, SX Salon, and Dialogos

She is the principal investigator for the Mellon Diaspora Solidarities Lab a $2 million project focused on Black feminist digital humanities initiatives that support solidarity work in Black and Ethnic Studies. She also is the founder of the MSU Womxn of Color Initiative, #ProyectoPalabrasPR, the Mentoring Underrepresented Students in English recruitment program (MUSE), and the Digital Humanities project Electric Marronage. She has received fellowships from the Duke University Council on Race and Ethnicity, the Ford Foundation, and the Cornell University Society for the Humanities.

Now celebrating its 50th year, CENTRO is an internationally recognized research institute for the study, interpretation, and preservation of the Puerto Rican experience in the United States. CENTRO scholars have used its extensive library and archives to contribute to public policy and celebrate the rich art, culture, and history of Puerto Rico and its Diaspora.

Academy of American Poets Names its First Latino Executive Director and President, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado

NEW YORK, NY | THE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS | June 21, 2023

—The Academy of American Poets, a leading publisher of contemporary poetry and funder of poets in the United States, is pleased to announce that it has selected Ricardo Alberto Maldonado to be its next Executive Director and President in a history-making appointment. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Maldonado is the first Latino to lead the Academy since its founding in 1934. He will begin his new role at the organization on July 17, 2023.

“We searched for a leader who was not merely seeking a job in poetry, but who was already fully invested in living out the vocation of poetry. As a poet, translator, and arts administrator, Ricardo Maldonado brings to the Academy of American Poets an intense passion for our mission, stellar nonprofit leadership experience, strong project management skills, a commitment to education and community-building, and a depth of knowledge about American poetry from the nineteenth century poets to the cutting-edge voices of today,” said Board Chair Tess O’Dwyer. “The Board of Directors voted unanimously and enthusiastically to appoint Ricardo based on our belief that he will not only sustain the Academy’s marvelous array of poetry offerings but will also strengthen, expand, and deepen them in the years to come.” for high school students; a teacher’s workshop focusing on making poetry accessible to young readers through curriculum design; and a residency for Spanish-speaking poets. Since 2020, he has spearheaded 92NY’s online seminar curriculum, drawing thousands of scholars and readers from all over the world for literary discussions, lectures, and panels. He was a founding member of the organization’s DEI committee, overseeing staff training and supporting implementation of organization-wide initiatives, with an emphasis on collaboration between programmatic, support, and service centers. Among his projects of note, he coedited A New Colossus, an online anthology of emerging voices celebrating Emma Lazarus’s work, which was featured in the New York Times, as well as Joy and Hope and All That, a tribute to the iconic American poet Lucille Clifton.

About his appointment, Maldonado said, “I owe a debt of gratitude to the Academy of American Poets. Like the many millions of poets, educators, and readers across the world who have used its resources since 1934, I believe, to quote the

“For sixteen years, Ricardo has stirred the lifeblood of 92NY, the Poetry Center, and its community of writers and readers,” said Bernard Schwartz, co-director of the Unterberg Poetry Center. “And never was that more true—more life-giving—than during the pandemic, when he worked day and night to keep the community together, making sure we all had a safe place to be, providing not just ballast, but also beauty. While the 92nd Street Y will miss him terribly, I’m incredibly excited to witness this thrilling new chapter.”

Ricardo Alberto Maldonado A graduate of Tufts and Columbia University’s School of the Arts, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado is a seasoned translator whose titles include Dinapiera Di Donato’s Colaterales/Collateral (National Poetry Series / Akashic Books). He is also a poet whose collection, The Life Assignment (Four Way Books, 2020), was a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award.

Maldonado is the board chair of the Poetry Project and serves on the board of directors of the New York Foundation for the Arts and on the poetry committee of the Brooklyn Book Festival. He was coeditor of Puerto Rico en mi corazón, a bilingual anthology that raised funds for grassroots recovery efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. He is currently part of El Proyecto de la Literatura Puertorriqueña / The Puerto Rican Literature Project, a forthcoming online database collecting the creative output of Puerto Rican poets in the diaspora and archipelago, developed in partnership with the University of Houston’s Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Program and the Mellon Foundation.

Maldonado currently serves as the co-director of 92NY’s Unterberg Poetry Center in New York City, where he produces one of the nation’s most prestigious reading series, as well as a curriculum of workshops for emerging writers and an annual poetry contest that, throughout the years, has launched the careers of major poets. He founded the Center’s Young Writers Workshop, a three-week program