Frederico Teixeira (Architecture)

Frederico Teixeira is a first-year doctoral student in the School of Architecture pursuing the History and Theory of Architecture track. He holds a master's degree in History of Architecture from the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo (FAUUSP), Brazil. His academic and professional background includes work in architecture, exhibition design, and museum practice. Before beginning his doctoral studies, Frederico worked as head of the exhibition department at the Museu da Casa Brasileira in São Paulo, where he contributed to curatorial and design strategies focused on material culture. He has also served as the artistic director of the Museu Itamar Assumpção since 2020, developing projects that engage with African heritage in Brazil and its intersections with cultural memory. His current research explores the intersections of queer and racial perspectives, domesticity, and modern architecture and design in Brazil. He is a member of Arquitetura Bicha, a Brazilian collective dedicated to queer approaches to architecture and spatial practices. 

Cristalina Parra (Spanish & Portuguese)

Cristalina Parra is a first-year doctoral student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She holds a B.A. in Art History from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) and an M.A. in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University (IFA). Her M.A. research, supported by the Estrellita Brodsky Fellowship for the study of Latin American Art, focused on Pepón Osorio’s 1993 installation at the Whitney Biennale, Scene of the Crime (Whose Crime?). In her thesis, Parra considers how Osorio’s artwork engages with home video recording. The conceptual armature of Parra’s thesis tracks the thematic doubling in the installation, from the work’s title to the installation’s visual logic, to explore possible correlations between the rise of multimedia and the concept of multiculturalism in the United States. During her time at NYU, Parra served as course assistant for graduate and undergraduate seminars, such as and “Queer and Feminist Theory of Labor” and “Modern Art,” and she led lectures at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and Centro Gabriela Mistral (GAM). Her ongoing and unresolved research curiosities explore how works of contemporary American art play an indispensable role in the overall cultural project of time in American common sense, not simply as beneficiaries or participants, but as the very models of the time-bending operation. 

Parra is also interested in poetry and translation; her first book (Tambaleos, 2020) was published by Editorial Planeta, and English translations of her work have been published by Ugly Duckling Presse, Latin American Literature Today, Asymptote Journal, and The Hopkins Review. She will be an organizer for the student roundtables at the 2026 Dakar Translation Symposium in Senegal.  

Kefeshe Bernard (Anthropology)

Kefeshe Bernard is a first-year doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology. They hold a Bachelor's degree from the University of Cambridge in Human, Social and Political Sciences, with a specialisation in Sociology. Having been raised across Trinidad, Barbados and the UK, Kefeshe’s work uses food as a site and source of social theory in order to understand edible narratives of ontology, resistance and colonial histories in the Caribbean. Their work takes a critical anti-racist and anti-colonial lens, centering joy and self-determination in resistance movement, and ways that resistance to oppressive systems is embedded into daily life. Kefeshe is interested in Caribbean food futures, and throughout their PhD, seeks to explore how climate change and political-economic development in the region impacts domestic food production, eating habits and diet-related diseases. They have begun research on the necropolitics of Sargassum pollution in Caribbean and Latin America, and hope that this will inform their doctoral research. During their time at Cambridge, Kefeshe founded Cambridge’s Caribbean Students’ Association; was elected as BME sabbatical officer; successfully campaigned and hired a Racial Harassment Advisor; reformed policy on protections for LGBTQ+ students of faith and directed an End Everyday Racism in Sports Campaign.