Our Team | Nuestro Equipo
Founders & Board of Directors
Christine MacDonald
Executive Director & Co-Founder
Christine is an investigative reporter, who has had a long career writing for top-ranked newspapers, such as the Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, and Washington Post. As Executive Director, she leads the organization’s Storytelling Program for Experiential Learning (SPEL), a weekly story lab that brings together high school and college interns and young adult fellows to produce articles and special research projects published on the Hola Cultura’s website. She mentors and edits the work of SPEL participants and other English-language contributors and oversees the day-to-day operations of the organization.
Christine has held several investigative reporting and writing fellowships and authored the book, “Green, Inc.” She started her career as a freelance foreign correspondent for the Dallas Morning News in Mexico and wrote for her hometown newspaper, the Boston Globe, before moving to Washington, D.C., in the mid-2000s.
Alberto Roblest
Co-Founder & Board President
Alberto is an accomplished writer, multimedia artist and educator. A prolific poet, essayist and reviewer, Alberto not only leads the organization; he serves as its Spanish-language editor, working with several volunteer contributors to produce new high quality Spanish-language content for Hola Cultura every week.
His visual poetry, digital still art, experimental videos and video installations have been widely exhibited in museums, galleries and art spaces. While his poetry, short stories, and essays have been published in literary journals and anthologies in the United States and Latin America. His latest books include: “Against the Wall: short stories” (Arte Publico Press 2022) and “Silent Tenants: poetry” (Day 8 Press 2023).
Gloria Valdez
Board Member
Gloria “Tarasca” Valdés is a self-taught visual artist originally from Michoacán, México. She produces vibrant canvases using oil paint on cotton fabric. For the last several years, she has produced a series of portraits of personalities who inspire her, ranging from famous artists and actors to historic figures. The aim of her work is to recognize those who do good work and inspire, inform and entertain her audiences. Gloria also contributes articles in Spanish to Hola Cultura’s online magazine, writing reviews and interviews on a range of topics of interest to Hola Cultura’s diverse community.
Thomas Devine
Board Member
Since 1979, Tom Devine has been the Government Accountability Project’s legal director, where he has assisted over 8,000 whistleblowers and has not lost a case since 2006. He has been on the front lines for the passage and oversight of 37 whistleblower laws, including nearly all U.S. federal laws and internationally from Serbia to the UN and World Bank, most recently the EU Whistleblower Directive and Ukraine. Tom is an adjunct professor at the DC Law School, has been recognized annually since 2012 by the Metropolitan Washington Lawyer’s Association as one of Washington DC’s top employment lawyers, has authored numerous books and law journals. He appears regularly as a media expert and has spoken in over a dozen nations as the State Department’s informal “Ambassador of Whistleblowing.” Tom also co-founded Whistleblowing International Network, where he serves on the Board.
HC Team
Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe
Assistant Editor
Marcelo is a journalist and video producer. As an editorial fellow in 2021, he led a youth reporting group and co-wrote an investigative series on D.C.’s heat islands. The story mapped temperature differences across the city and examined the disproportionate effects extreme heat can have on D.C.’s residents. He is the host of Hola Cultura’s podcast “The Climate Divide,” which examines D.C.’s heat islands and related health disparities along racial, ethnic and class lines.
Belén Fernandez
Senior Advisor
Belen Fernandez grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she worked as an attorney in the private and public sector for more than 5 years. She immigrated to the United States in 2012 to pursue a Master of Laws (L.L.M.) at Fordham Law School in New York City. After being admitted to practice law in New York State in 2013, she worked as a pro bono attorney in different nonprofits such as The Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, Legal Services, and The Spanish Benevolent Society (La Nacional). Since she moved to Washington D.C. in 2017, she has been involved with Hola Cultura as a volunteer and consultant. Belen has a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from University of Maryland. She works as a Human Resources Coordinator at Identity, Inc.
Miriam Ostria
Senior Advisor
Miriam is a dynamic leader, with over 30 years of experience in organizational development and the management of non-profit organizations. A native of the Dominican Republic, she brings a strategic and results-oriented approach to addressing the operational challenges of nonprofits, regardless of size. With expertise in nonprofit finance and operations, grants management and strategic planning and business development, Miriam has focused on guiding small nonprofits to develop strategic plans, implement impactful programs and build stronger organizational capacity over the past decade. Miriam currently serves as the Director of Finance and Operations for the Center for Artistic Activism. She holds a B.A. in economics from Santo Domingo Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in Latin American studies and finance from George Washington University. Additionally, she completed the Strategic Management of Nonprofits program at Harvard Business School. Outside of work, Miriam is an avid tennis player and enjoys traveling with her family, embracing diverse cultures and connecting with people from around the world.
Claudia Peralta Torres
Podcast Producer
Claudia (she/her) is a Peruvian American storyteller and video editor based in the northern Virginia area. She graduated with honors from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Robert T. Robertson School of Media and Culture in Richmond, Virginia. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mass communications with a concentration in broadcast journalism and a minor in psychology. Throughout her life, she has had a love for film. Claudia hopes to share people’s stories and experiences either professionally or as passion projects. As a senior in college, she and two classmates filmed and edited the documentary, “Lost in the Daze of Candy.” The documentary follows the Virginia band Backroom Portrait on their journey as artists, sharing how music became a lifeline to help the band members overcome various events in their lives. The film was included in three film festivals and chosen as a finalist at the Mountain Shadow Film Society’s festival in the short film competition in Walnut Creek, California. In her free time, Claudia enjoys watching films and television shows, playing guitar, and traveling.
Paige Holman
Grant Writer
Paige (she/her) is a dedicated writer and storyteller. Her work experience lies in nonprofit grant writing, social media management and graphic design. In 2022, she graduated as the Outstanding Graduate in Human Services at Western Washington University. Growing up a quiet soul, she quickly learned to harness her passion for writing as a form of expression and started contributing her skills to organizations and causes she cares about. During her college years, she interned at FuturesNW, where she helped students fill out their financial aid applications for college and co-led work-readiness workshops for students with learning disabilities. Working with Spanish-speaking youth sparked her passion for immigrant rights and Latinx culture, prompting her to start learning Spanish midway through college. After completing her studies, Paige moved to Mexico City, where she has since established her post-grad life working for nonprofits. In her free time, she enjoys writing poetry, collaging and cooking new foods.
Shanna Kelly
Online Analytics Advisor
Shanna Kelly provides monthly analytics reports and analysis for Hola Cultura to help grow the website and social media. She is also The Boston Globe’s mobile applications producer, managing the Globe app and news alerts, and a freelance editor for Stacker Media.
Shanna has a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. For her master’s project, she broke down Argentina’s 0.1 net migration rate — who’s leaving and coming, the factors that determine this, and the future implications. A New Jersey native, she also founded a news site in her home state.
Before that, she received a bachelor’s degree from James Madison University’s Honors College in journalism, Spanish, and Spanish-English translation and interpretation. Shanna graduated as the Outstanding Contributor in Journalism, and the three years she was an editor for the school’s newspaper, it was awarded the best mid-sized, non-daily newspaper in Virginia by the Virginia Press Association. She completed her Honors College thesis on CNN and NBC immigration coverage, comparing network versus cable news coverage.
Shanna has studied in Spain three times, and her Spanish language studies led her to teaching at a school in Salamanca, Spain, and a dual-language school in Harrisonburg, Va.
Emily Chapman
Website Manager
Emily is a passionate, creative web designer/developer. She graduated from Mount Mary University with a bachelor’s degree in English with minors in studio arts and Spanish. During her undergraduate years, she was a staff member on the university’s student publication, where she had her first experiences with web design. After working in digital communications for a few years, she went back to school and earned an associate degree in web and digital media design. Currently, she works as a web designer/developer for a county government in her home state. In her free time, she enjoys reading, visiting art museums and playing with her adopted cat, Salamander.
Iris Lopez
Organizational Social Media Intern
Iris (she/her) is a first-generation Mexican-Guatemalan-American from the Bay Area. She is leveraging her passion for photography to highlight cultural awareness and appreciation and heritage connections. A third-year student at the University of California, Berkeley, Iris is majoring in media studies and art history with a minor in ethnic studies. Iris has also interned with nonprofits and media centers that focus on immigrant rights, economic justice and housing issues in her community. In the future, she hopes to go to graduate school and become an archivist in contemporary art that emphasizes underrepresented cultural histories. She hopes to further refine her visual storytelling and writing skills at Hola Cultura!