Ana Calderon

Ana Calderón is a PhD candidate working on twentieth century US and Caribbean history. Her dissertation, titled “La Gran Sociedad: Colonial War on Poverty, Empire and the Remaking of Development in Puerto Rico after WWII” explores Puerto Rico’s industrialization through the lens of the War on Poverty/Great Society. This project historicizes how different sectors in the American colony, from technical experts to community activists, understood the politics of development and its connection to social movements. Ana has served as a coordinator for the International History Workshop and is currently a member of the Puerto Rico Archival Collaboration at Rutgers’ Center for Latin American Studies, where she served as a research assistant at the Archivo General de Puerto Rico.

Before coming to Yale, Ana received her BA in History from Rutgers University and spent several years as a graduate student in her native San Juan. Her research has been generously supported by the MacMillan Center, International Security Studies, John Enders Foundation and the History Department. Ana’s writing on Puerto Rico has been published in Global Voices and the University of Puerto Rico’s interdisciplinary journal Revista Umbral. Students interested in the PhD program are welcomed to contact her.