Mayra Santos Febres 

Mayra Santos-Febres was born in Carolina, PuertoRico 1966. She studied literature at the University of Puerto Rico and a Ph. D. at Cornell University.   She has been a visiting scholar at Rutgers (1992), Cornell (1994) and Harvard University (2004) as well as Complutense University in Spain (2013), Autonomous University of México, at Yucatán campus (2008) and Leipzing University in Holland (2005).   She co-created the Creative Writing Program for the University of Puerto Rico, and founded and directed The Word/ Festival de la Palabra, the most internationally recognized Literary Festival in Puerto Rico (2010-2019) . Content Coordinator of Interdisciplinary and Multicultural Institute at the UPR, Mayra Santos –Febres in currently the Principal Investigator for the development of University of Puerto Rico’s Afro Diasporic and Race Studies Program, which has been recently awarded with a Mellon Foundation grant for academic diversification.