Ana Marisa Ponte

Ana is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Her developing
research examines representations of public space in Spanish literature and film. Grounded in an
interdisciplinary approach that reflects her academic background, her work investigates the
cultural and political functions of civic spaces in literary and cinematic narratives, exploring
questions of identity, collective memory, transition, and transformation in modern and
contemporary Spain.

Ana earned a B.A. in Political Science, with minors in Spanish and History, and an M.S.Ed. in
International Educational Development from the University of Pennsylvania. Before beginning
her doctoral studies, she taught a fifth-grade bilingual classroom in Miami-Dade County Public
Schools as a Teach For America corps member, where she was recognized as a “Highly
Effective” educator. Both her classroom experience and her multicultural upbringing in Spain,
France, Germany, and the United States have shaped her research interests and commitment to
language pedagogy.