Listed below are the candidates for Vice President 2026-2027 and Executive Council 2026-2028. Voting will be available online and we will only facilitate voting onsite on a case by case basis during the CSA conference.
| Vice-President, Executive Council 2026-2027 The Vice-President serves for one year after which she/he assumes the Presidency: |
 Yanique Hume Dr. Yanique Hume is an interdisciplinary scholar, choreographer, and practitioner of African diaspora dance whose work moves fluidly across the boundaries of academic scholarship and critical creative practice. A scholar-initiate in Kongo and Yoruba-based Africana sacred traditions, she brings to her work an embodied and relational knowledge that grounds her scholarship in lived experience as much as critical theory. Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies and Head of the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, she is widely recognised as a leading voice in Caribbean Cultural Studies, African Diaspora Spiritualities and Religiosities, and Afro-Atlantic Festive and Sacred Arts. Dr. Hume brings to this nomination a distinguished record of institutional and regional leadership. As Head of Department at UWI Cave Hill, she has demonstrated sustained commitment to curriculum innovation, postgraduate mentorship, and the internationalisation of Caribbean scholarship — coordinating immersive study programs with institutions including NYU, St. Mary’s University, and Morehouse College, and building sustained academic partnerships across the Caribbean, North America, West Africa, and Europe. Her leadership of the Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts Strategic Plan Committee, where she heads working groups on enrolment, regional engagement, and curriculum reform, reflects her investment in the long-term institutional health of Caribbean higher education. At the regional and international level, Dr. Hume has served as President of KOSANBA, the Scholarly Association for the Study of Haitian Vodou and African Diaspora Religions, demonstrating her capacity to lead scholarly organizations with both intellectual vision and administrative commitment. She has served as Chair of the Evaluation Committee for the Inaugural Cultural Industries Finance Fund Enabler Grant at the Caribbean Development Bank, and as Key Expert and Lead Researcher for the CARICOM Secretariat’s Regional Strategic Plan for Cultural and Creative Industries — work that reflects her sustained engagement with Caribbean policy, development, and cultural sovereignty beyond the walls of the academy. She has been a long-standing member of the Visual Art and Performance Track Committee of the Caribbean Studies Association and a consistent presence at its annual conferences. Dr. Hume is deeply committed to advancing the Caribbean Studies Association’s mission of fostering rigorous, regionally grounded, and globally engaged scholarship. She brings to the Vice Presidency a vision of Caribbean Studies as a site of intellectual leadership, creative sovereignty, and transformative regional solidarity. With a proven record of transnational scholarly leadership, she brings the vision, creative dynamism, institutional experience, and intellectual authority essential to advancing the evolving field of Caribbean Studies in this critical socio-political climate. » View Vision Statement | » View CV |
 Raymond Laureano-Ortiz RAYMOND LAUREANO-ORTIZ, engineer, management consultant, and PhD in Caribbean History, is a faculty member at the Center for Advanced Studies on Puerto Rico and the Caribbean (CEAPRC, acronym in Spanish) in San Juan. His historical research interests focus on Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, international relations, economic development, scientific and technological innovation, the business ecosystem of innovation, issues of diversity and inclusiveness, and cultural studies. His Spanish-language PhD dissertation on the history of Puerto Rico’s paradiplomacy or international relations in the 1980s and 1990s received an Honorable Mention for the Caribbean Studies Association’s Best Dissertation Award in 2018. Laureano-Ortiz has been affiliated as a postdoctoral researcher to the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver; the Institute of Caribbean Studies at the University of Puerto Rico; the “Greater Caribbean” Working Group of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO, acronym in Spanish), and the ConnecCaribbean project of the European Union. He has served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the CEAPRC, as Chair of the British Society for Caribbean Studies (SCS-UK), as Vice President of the Association of Caribbean Historians (ACH), as Vice President and President-Elect of the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA), and as Secretary-Treasurer of the Puerto Rican Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA-PR). Laureano-Ortiz led as co-founder and Managing Editor the launch of the peer-reviewed academic journal Caribbean Conjunctures: The Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) Journal (2022). For this, he was in charge of the processes to enable the joint work of a multilingual (Papiamento, Dutch, French, Spanish, and English), global (across five continents), and multidisciplinary team of 30 editors, 35 advisors, and more than 100 peer reviewers. He is also the author of the Spanish-language textbook International Relations: Puerto Rico, the United States, and the Rest of the World (2023), currently used in Puerto Rico’s public schools. His article “Puerto Rico and CARICOM: A Case Study in the History of Puerto Rico’s Relations with the Caribbean” was published as Chapter 8 in the Routledge Handbook of Caribbean Studies (2025). » View Vision Statement | » View CV |
| Member, Executive Council 2026-2028 Executive Council Members serve for a two year term. |
 Schuyler Esprit Schuyler Esprit is the Founder and Director of Create Caribbean Research Institute, the first digital humanities center in the Caribbean. Her research areas of interest include Caribbean literary and cultural studies, environmental and ecological humanities, and digital humanities. In addition to her writing for several magazines, journals and newspapers on topics related to Caribbean studies, Dr. Esprit writes and publishes on Caribbean literature, including on the impact of reading in communities in real and virtual spaces. Dr. Esprit is also a Lecturer of Literatures in English at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. » View CV
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 Rashana Lydner Rashana Vikara Lydner, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Bridging the fields of Caribbean studies, French cultural studies, linguistic anthropology, and Creolistics her research focuses on a transnational approach to the study of Black popular culture in the francophone and anglophone Caribbean at the intersections of language, identity, and power. Her published works include “Decolonizing Creolistics Through Popular Culture” in Decolonizing Linguistics (Oxford University Press), “S’habiller Sexy en Body String: The French Guianese bad gyal and the image of French Caribbean Women” in Small Axe: a Caribbean journal of criticism, and “‘Mwen Enmé’W’ [I Love You]: Black Queer Women’s Social Positioning in the French Caribbean” in Gender & Language. She is currently completing her first monograph, Dancehall ka joué: Gender and Sexual Politics at Play in French Guiana, under contract with Louisiana State University Press as part of the Noir(e): Race and Belonging in the Afro-French World book series. Dr. Lydner has a Ph.D. in French and Francophone Studies, with a designated emphasis in African Diaspora Studies, from the University of California, Davis; a M.A. in French from the University of California, Davis, and a B.A. in French and Spanish, Summa Cum Laude, with a minor in Psychology, from the State University of New York, Brockport. » View Vision Statement | » View CV |
 Alpha Obika Alpha Obika is a Lecturer, Undergraduate Coordinator and Programme Coordinator for the BA degree in Integrated Marketing Communication at the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC), University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. He has a PhD in Communication Studies from CARIMAC, a Master of Arts in Cultural Policy and Management from City, University of London, and a BA in Media and Communications from CARIMAC. His research specializes in Communication and Cultural Policy, Event Management, and critical analysis of media and cultural products in the global south. » View CV |
 Raona Williams Dr. Raona Williams is a distinguished, award-winning UWI Lecturer of Education, published author, Health/Education consultant and future-focused Digital TVET champion with an impactful footprint across corporate, governmental and academic spheres. Dedicated to driving Caribbean multi-disciplinary intellectualism and economic growth, her post-doctoral research specialisms centre around investigating digital transformation developments in education and vocational assessment methodologies, Technical, Vocational and Educational Leadership/Workforce Development advancements, the future of education using virtual learning technologies, Internet of things (IOT) and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) tools to foster knowledge-economy driven excellence and forward-thinking Caribbean and Global entrepreneurship. She is a driven pracademic being a registered practitioner and clinical educator with years of experience Her extensive academic research and creative works span decades and are widely available. As a proud citizen dedicated to Pan-Caribbeanism, her peer-reviewed academic manuscripts have featured in prominent publications such as the Caribbean Journal of Education, Caribbean Journal of Education and Development, Caribbean Conjectures and Frontiers in Education journals. She is also the author of four books covering critical contemporary domains: generative AI/ML trends in Caribbean education and entrepreneurship, the global celebration of modern literature across the Caribbean diaspora, foreign policy and sustainable development initiatives bridging Caribbean and Gulf countries, and pioneering linguistic compilations that translate and transliterate Patois, Kwéyòl and Modern Standard Arabic writings. In her professional governance and academic leadership roles, Dr Williams is an Executive Council Member for the Jamaica Technology and Digital Alliance (JTDA) serving to provide and democratise digital access, maximising influence and empowerment for national and regional populations through technological integration. Additionally, she serves as a Journal Editor for Frontiers in Education and operates an independent publisher service dedicated towards supporting early-career researchers and Caribbean creatives. She holds active membership with several prestigious global organisations across education, technology and health environs to champion Caribbean talent situated all over the world. With an academic and professional career spanning diverse domains and geographical boundaries, Dr Williams » View Vision Statement | » View CV |