Dr. Ada Vilageliu-Diaz

Dr. Ada Vilageliu-Diaz is an Assistant Professor of English in the Division of Arts and Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of the District of Columbia. She received her Ph.D. in English from Howard University, and her B.A. in English Philology from Universidad de La Laguna, Canary Islands. She has taught composition courses as a full-time lecturer at Howard University and Bowie State University. Her scholarship focuses on Latinx, Caribbean, and African American women writers, with a special emphasis on short stories. She is currently working on a publication about teaching writing at HBCU institutions as a counter-narrative (the teaching and the writing itself). Her poetry has been published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, American University’s Festival Latino-Americano de Poesía, and Knocking on the Door of the White House: Latina and Latino Poets in Washington, D.C. Most of her poems are based on legends and myths about the indigenous Guanches from the Canary Islands, and focused on reconstructing a lost indigenous African identity. She is also a documentary filmmaker. Her directorial debut was in 2014 with the documentary Near the River, about environmental women leaders in the DC area. This film was an official selection of film festivals in Colombia, Brazil, India, Spain, and the United States.