Ximena Vial (MA ‘16), master in Museum Anthropology from Columbia’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, has won the “Professor of Excellence” award from Universidad del Desarrollo’s (UDD) Public Responsibility Program.
The accolade - based on student and faculty evaluations carried out every semester - was for Vial’s courses "Migrants: Dreams and Conflicts across Borders" and "A Night at the Museum: A Journey through Stories and Silences."
Vial had previously been recognized by Chile’s Ministry of Culture for her master’s thesis entitled “The Silences Shaping the Memory of the Mapuche in the Historical National Museum of Chile.”
Her research focuses on themes related to the construction of national narratives through museums, memory and silences in relation to human rights in Latin America, based on oral history as a means to explore collective and individual memories.