She was born and raised in Piura, a small town in northern Peru. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she specialized in contemporary Spanish-American narrative, and minored in Latin American studies. Her dissertation, “La aventura de escribir: parodia y metaficción en La tía Julia y el escribidor de Mario Vargas Llosa,” was later published as a book. Her research has been published in various journals—Pembroke Magazine, Consensus, Nueva Literatura Hispánica, The Film Journal, and Romance Notes, among others. She has developed and managed learning programs in Peru and Spain, and was visiting professor of Spanish at Tomsk State Pedagogical University (Russia). Member