Skip Links

Find an Expert View All Stories

Topic: Spanish

Adriann Wycoff

By

Adriann Wycoff, Ph.D., is a professor of Chicana/o Studies and holds a courtesy appointment as an associate professor of Women’s Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Apart from teaching she is also Director of the MSU Denver Family Literacy Program and Co-Principal Investigator of the College Assistance Migrant Program. She has more than thirty years’ experience in community-based, non-traditional education. Her responsibilities have included teaching, program administration, curriculum development, grant writing, community outreach and public relations. Wycoff holds a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, also in Spanish.

Marc Rodriguez

By

Marc Rodriguez, M.A., is the Parents as Teachers Coordinator and Parenting Coordinator in the Family Literacy program at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include K-12 education, parenting skills, Sheltered (ESL) Instruction, and educational administration.

Rodriguez has been with MSU Denver for 10 years. In addition to working at MSU Denver, Rodriguez works as a Teacher Effectiveness Coach at Denver Public Schools.

Rodriguez received both his master’s degree in educational administration and his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from University of Colorado – Denver in 1995 and 1990, respectively.

Luis Rivas

By

Luis Rivas, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of English at Metropolitan State University. His areas of expertise include rhetoric and composition theory, students of migrant/seasonal-farmworkers and post secondary education.

Rivas previously worked as director of the College Assistance Migrant Program where he oversaw daily activities reporting to the Office of Migrant Education. He also attended and presented at several Office of Migrant Education sponsored conferences to share relevant experience with other CAMP programs. Prior, he also worked as a student liaison in 2010 for CAMP, where he developed workshops and other activities for students.

Rivas received his Ph.D. in composition and rhetoric theory and a master’s in creative writing in poetry from the University of Nebraska. He received his bachelor’s in English from York College.

Jose Quintana

By

Jose Quintana, M.A., is a senior lecturer in the Department of Chicana/Chicano Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He teaches Introduction to Chicano Studies as well as Survey of Chicana/o Literature. Quintana’s areas of research encompass all things cultural based, especially folklore that has been deconstructed and reinterpreted. He believes in using cultural elements such as language, art, music and food to help students connect with the personal aspects of his classes.

Vincent Piturro

By

Vincent Piturro, Ph.D., is a professor of film and media studies in the Department of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

He hosts an annual science fiction film series in conjunction with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Denver Film Society. Piturro writes a film review column for The Front Porch, a neighborhood Denver paper with a circulation of about 30,000. In addition to teaching, he is also the general studies chair on the Faculty Senate Standing Committee at MSU Denver.

Piturro published several works including a book chapter on “The Ballad of Little Jo” in the edited collection of “Love in Western Film and Television,” an article in the International Academic Forum journal titled “Documentary Film Rhetoric: Saving Face and the Public Sphere” and a book chapter on gays in Westerns in the upcoming edited volume “The New Western.” His areas of research include Westerns, science fiction, documentaries, Italian cinema and Italian-American cinema.

Piturro received his doctorate in film studies from University of Colorado Denver in 2008.

David Piacenti

By

David Piacenti teaches Prejudice & Discrimination, Contemporary Sociology, Art & Craft of Sociology Writing, and Sociological Theory: Past and Present.

He has taught at Metropolitan State University of Denver since 2010.

Piacenti has published “Yucatec-Mayan Immigration to the Mission and Edison Neighborhoods: A Comparison of Social Conditions and Immigrant Satisfaction” in the Journal of Méxican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, “The Tangle of Anthropological Tourism: How the Consumption of Fantasy and Academia Share Common Spaces” in Applied Anthropologist and “For Love of Family and Family Values: How Immigrant Motivations Can Inform Immigration Policy” in the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy.

Marina Pereira

By

Professor Marina Pereira has taught graduate courses in the Graduate Social Work program as MSU Denver. She has taught at Metropolitan State University of Denver since 1999.

Professor Pereira is well versed in topics of mental health and families. She has special interest in issues of acculturation, diversity and first-generation Latino students. She was an advisor for the Student Association of Social Workers (SASW), a student organization that helps students develop and increase their sense of civic responsibility and community engagement by service learning activities.

Before teaching at MSU Denver, Pereira worked in the areas of medical social work and mental health, where she specialized in treating and advocating for children and families with a history of domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse.

Adriana Nieto

By

Adriana Nieto, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Chicana/o Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She has been with the university for over 15 years, first starting out as an adjunct professor and then becoming a full-time faculty member in 2009. Her teaching and research interests include Latina spiritualities and practices; women of color feminisms; mental health among Xicanas in early 20th Century New Mexico; Chicana protestants in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands; oral history and water in the ‘West’, with special interest in acequia culture and practices in southern Colorado.

Nieto received her Ph.D. in religious and theological studies form the University of Denver Iliff School of Theology, her master’s in Latin American studies with a focus on gender studies and borderland history from the University of New Mexico and her bachelor’s in Latin American and women studies also from the University of New Mexico.

Abel Moreno

By

Abel Moreno, Ph.D., is the chair of the Department of Computer Information Systems at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Moreno has served as department chair since 1999. His scholarly work focuses on management science, such as data envelopment analysis applications, computer information systems, quantitative methods for business pedagogy and information systems education. He has been published in various academic journals, including the Indian Journal of Economics and Business, the International Journal of Global Management Studies Professional, the International Journal of Intercultural and Information Management and Information Systems Education.

Moreno received his doctorate in engineering with a concentration in industrial engineering and management; and a master’s in industrial engineering and management from North Dakota State University, Fargo in 1990 and 1988 respectively; and a bachelor’s in industrial and systems engineering from Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) in Monterrey, Mexico in 1981.

Elizabeth McVicker

By

Elizabeth McVicker, Ph.D., J.D., is a professor in the Department of Management at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

She serves as an advisor for student internships, independent studies, individualized degree program majors; and provides academic advice to management majors, MBA students and students interested in pursuing a study of law. McVicker was instrumental in the creation of MSU Denver’s One World One Water Center (OWOW) and the Water Studies curriculum. She also has her own practice.

Her service to the community includes serving on the boards of a water conservancy district, a water enterprise authority, a nation-wide water consortium serving coalitions and collaborations focused on water quality and restoration after major fires and floods and a state-wide basin roundtable. In 2011, McVicker received the Outstanding Women Award from the Institute of Women’s Studies and Services at MSU Denver, as well as the College of Business Dean’s Award for Overall Faculty Excellence.

Her research interests include legal issues surrounding constitutional law, employment and labor law; and water law within the context of regional, national and international perspectives.

McVicker received her juris doctorate from University of Denver, doctorate in Spanish language and literature from New York University, master’s from Johns Hopkins University and bachelor’s from University of Texas. She is a licensed attorney in the state of Colorado in good standing and is current with all required continuing legal education classes.

;