GVPT associate professor Isabella Alcañiz is the new director of the Latin American & Caribbean Studies Center (LACS) at the University of Maryland. LACS is the premier public university research and teaching center on LAC in the Washington DC area. Dr. Alcañiz was appointed by Dean Bonnie Thornton Dill of the College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU), where LACS is housed. She is the first non-ARHU director in the Center's 30 year history.