Appointment of Dr. Carmen Diana Deere as Director of the Center for Latin American Studies

David R. Colburn, Provost

I am very pleased to announce that Dr. Carmen Diana Deere has been appointed as the next Director of the Center for Latin American Studies, beginning August 15, 2004. She will take over the position from Dr. Charles Wood, who is stepping down to return to research and teaching after having served as Director since 1996.

Dr. Deere is no stranger to the University of Florida. She spent a semester here as a Bacardi Family Eminent Scholar in Latin American Studies in 1996 and has visited on many other occasions to take advantage of the library holdings of UF’s Latin American Collection. For the past twelve years, she has served as Director of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she has been a professor in the Department of Economics since 1986. She is a recognized leader in the field of Latin American Studies, serving as President of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) from 1992 to 1994.

Dr. Deere is a highly productive and well-respected scholar whose research on agrarian issues and gender relations has spanned over a dozen Latin American countries. She has published ten books, and received six awards for three of them, including her most recent book, a twelve-country study of land and property rights in Latin America that was co- authored with Magdalena Leon. Dr. Deere earned her Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1978.

Under Dr. Deere’s leadership, the Center for Latin American Studies is certain to strengthen its reputation as one of the outstanding programs in the country.