Contributors
- Contributors
Mervyn J. Bain is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. His research interests are Russian foreign policy and modern-day Latin America, but more specifically Cuba. He is the author of Soviet-Cuban Relations 1985 to 1991: Changing Perceptions in Moscow and Havana (2007) and Russian-Cuban Relations since 1992: Continuing Camaraderie in a Post-Soviet World (2008). He has published articles on Cuba's relationship with the former Soviet Union in a variety of journals, including Journal of Latin American Studies, and his chapter "Gorbachev's Legacy for Russian/Cuban Relations Post 1991" was included in Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy: The Political Impact of the "Special Period" (2006). In conjunction with Andrea Oelsner he coauthored a chapter in Democratization (2009). He has held research grants from the British Academy and Carnegie Trust.
Mayra P. Espina Prieto is a researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones Psicológicas y Sociológicas of Cuba (CIPS) and professor at the University of Havana. She is a member of the research council at CIPS and the Centro de Antropología, as well as a member of the editorial board for the magazine Temas. Espina Prieto is president of the National Liaison Committee for MOST/UNESCO in Cuba. Among her recent publications are "Cuba: Reforma Económica y Reestratificación Social," in Cuba: Sociedad y trabajo (2000), and "Transición y dinámica de los procesos socioculturales," in Cuba: Construyendo futuro (2000).
Julie Feinsilver is currently a visiting researcher at Georgetown University and an independent consultant. She previously taught Latin American politics and development at Oberlin College, Bard College, Colgate University, and Wesleyan University. Since leaving academia in 1993, she has worked for the Pan American Health Organization in Research and Technological Development and, more recently, for twelve years at the Inter-American Development Bank. She has conducted research on Cuban medical diplomacy since 1979 and is the author of the book Healing the Masses: Cuban Health Politics at Home and Abroad (1993), as well as numerous articles and book chapters since 1989 dealing with Cuba's medical diplomacy, biotechnology development, foreign relations, nontraditional exports, and politics of health. She was the scientific editor of and contributor to the book Biodiversity, Biotechnology and Sustainable Development in Health and Agriculture: Emerging Connections (1996) and is currently writing a book tentatively titled Medical Diplomacy: Fifty Years of Cuba's Soft Power Politics.
Emily J. Kirk received her BA (honors) in international development studies and Spanish from Dalhousie University in 2009. She studied at the University of Havana in the winter of 2008 and has presented her research on both HIV/AIDS in Cuba and Cuba's [End Page 209] medical cooperation with Haiti at various global health conferences. She is currently studying at the University of Cambridge, completing an M.Phil. in Latin American studies.
John M. Kirk is professor of Latin American studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has written several books on Cuba, the most recent of which (coauthored with Michael Erisman) is Cuban Medical Internationalism: Origins, Evolution and Goals (2009). He is the editor of the Contemporary Cuba series at the University Press of Florida. Currently, he is working on a new book examining the impact of Cuban medical internationalism and lessons that can be learned from that policy.
Marta Núñez-Sarmiento is a professor and a researcher at the Center for Study of International Migrations at the University of Havana. Her research has concentrated on transition projects for Cuba proposed by Cuban American and U.S. scholars, women and employment in Cuba, gender studies in Cuba, images of women in Cuban mass media, and images of Cuba in Cuban and foreign mass media. Holding a master's degree in sociology from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Santiago, Chile, and a PhD in economics from the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia, she has been a visiting professor at universities in the Dominican Republic, Switzerland, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Spain, and Argentina. Working as a consultant for several agencies of the United Nations (1988–2010), the Canadian Agency for International Development, the Association of Caribbean...
