Briseyda Barrientos Ariza

DOCTORAL STUDENT, YALE UNIVERSITY

Briseyda Barrientos Ariza is a Guatemalan American from the D.C.-Maryland area and first-generation doctoral student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University, where she studies Central American orature. Her other research interests include Central American studies, cultural studies, decolonial studies, film, sonic art, archival studies, performance studies, politics of temporality and memory, and sonic- territories and imaginations.

She completed a B.S. in English literature and psychology, summa cum laude, from Towson University (2022) and an M.Phil in European, Latin American, and Comparative Literatures and Cultures from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar (2024). She is also a 2025 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow.

Prior to Yale, Barrientos Ariza worked in philanthropy, providing grant support to grassroots organizations across Central America and the U.S. that advance women and girls’ access to education and sexual reproductive health and rights in the toughest regions to be female and gender diverse.