The Department of Romance Languages at the University of Georgia proudly recognizes two exceptional graduate scholars whose work reflects excellence in research, teaching, and interdisciplinary inquiry.

Flor Adams, PhD Candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, has received the 2025–2026 Romance Languages Distinguished Research Publication Award for the article “Speculative Fabulation as Inquiry: Creative Approaches to Language Research,” published in Qualitative Inquiry (2026).

Adams’s research brings together post-structuralism and posthumanism, queer theory, discourse analysis, raciolinguistics, and sociopragmatics to examine how language operates within structures of power. Her current work focuses on Mock Spanish and the use of pejoratives, including slurs. Alongside her research, she teaches undergraduate Spanish courses and courses in Women and Gender Studies, while completing graduate certificates across three interdisciplinary fields.

Yasmin Paiva de Siqueira, Master’s student in Portuguese, has been awarded an Honorable Mention for her article “Um olhar para o ‘eu’ do passado: Mapeando a identidade pessoal e social da voz narrativa em Guia afetivo da periferia” published in Opiniães (2025).

Paiva de Siqueira combines extensive teaching experience with a strong commitment to language education and cultural engagement. At UGA, she served as a Teaching Assistant for Portuguese and a tutor for the Portuguese Flagship Program, and previously contributed as content editor of Fala aí, the program’s award-winning bilingual magazine. A former Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at Spelman College, she will continue her academic career as a PhD student in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University.

Together, Adams and Paiva de Siqueira exemplify the depth, rigor, and global reach of graduate scholarship in Romance Languages. These awards are made possible through the generous support of Dr. Luis Correa-Diaz, Dr. Elizabeth Wright, Dr. Doris Kadish (Distinguished Research Professor Emerita), Dr. Juan Antonio Quiroga Mellado (Universidad Complutense, Spain).