Yesenia Olaya Requene is an Afro-Colombian scholar, born in Tumaco in the Colombian Pacific region. She holds a degree in Sociology from the University de Caldas and a Master’s degree in Pedagogy at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). She earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology at the same university in 2019. She won the Fray Bernardino de Sahagún award for the best Doctoral and Dissertation Thesis from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), with the research on “Vivir entre fronteras: movilidades de comunidades afrocolombianas en la frontera Colombia-Ecuador. Memoria de los nuevos paisajes y reconfiguración territorial”. Her research fields include race and racism in Latin America, Black diaspora, and forced migration in Afro-Latin American communities. She has experience teaching courses on race, racism, and Afro-Latin American migrations at universities in Latin America.
In her role as the Academic Coordinator of the Certificate on Afro-Latin American Studiesshe manages all aspects of its operations and serves as the primary contact between participating students and faculty.