UNLCP Instructors

Sabina Cruz is from Tecomate, Chicontepec, Veracruz, and is a native speaker of the Nahuatl language. She is a Nahuatl language and culture instructor at the University of Los Angeles, California (UCLA). She works at the Institute of Teaching and Ethnological Research of Zacatecas (IDIEZ), where she also participates as an instructor in fall courses in Zacatecas. She graduated from the Autonomous University of Zacatecas with a law degree and holds a Master's in Historical Education. From January to April 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015. She was a Nahuatl language instructor in the Department of Anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans. From 2015 to 2017, she also worked as a Nahuatl instructor in the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies and Collections LLILAS BENSON department at the University of Texas. She is the author of an article in the Ethnohistory journal 'Tepahtihquetl pan ce pilalteptzin' translated from Nahuatl to English in 2019. She participated in the translation and research for the Florentine Codex book at the Getty Research Institute of Los Angeles. Her research focuses on traditional medicine, and she has participated in ethnohistory conferences and at LASA.

Dr. Sullivan is a Nahuatl philologist with a teaching degree from the Escuela Normal ‘Manuel Ávila Camacho’ (1977), a Ph.D. in Hispanic literature from the University of California, San Diego (1995) and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellow (2007). He is a co-founder of the Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A. C. (IDIEZ), an Older Nahuatl instructor at the University of Utah and the Uniwersytet Warszawski, and a Professor Emeritus at the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas. He has published numerous scholarly articles and books, including the monolingual dictionary Tlahtolxitlauhcayotl: Chicontepec, Veracruz (2016), and the forthcoming book, co-authored with Justyna Olko and Robert Borges, Five Centuries of Contact-Induced Language Change: Nahuatl and its Speakers in a Multidisciplinary Perspective (Cambridge). 

Alma de la Cruz Cruz is from Lindero 2, Chicontepec, Veracruz; her native language is Nahuatl. Her passion for promoting Nahua art is expressed through embroidery, which she enhances with handwoven decorations, creating entirely handmade final products. Her scholarly work focuses on oral lore—specifically, transmitting local practices and beliefs to the children of her region, exemplified by the 'ilhuitl' or 'Day of the Dead.' She collaborates with the Institute of Teaching and Ethnological Research of Zacatecas A.C. (IDIEZ). As an IDIEZ collaborator, she teaches Nahuatl courses at Stanford University. Additionally, she is developing a cookbook written in her native language, Nahuatl, that features recipes from her community.

Currently, he is the director at the Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas (IDIEZ) https://idiezmacehualli.org and an Associate Instructor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Utah.

His work at IDIEZ focuses on teaching, research activities, and efforts to revitalize the Nahuatl language and culture. De la Cruz graduated from the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas (UAZ), earning a master's degree in Humanities and Educational Research and a bachelor's degree in economics. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Warsaw, in the Faculty of "Liberal Arts," specializing in cultural studies. Professor De la Cruz is the author and co-author of several monolingual books in Nahuatl, and among his most recent publications are: Tlaneltoquilli tlen mochihua ica cintli ipan tlalli Chicontepec: Tlamantli chicahualiztli ipan tochinano (2024), published in Nahuatl and English and Difusión y Revitalización de una Lengua a Partir de una Experiencia: El Náhuatl (2023), published in Spanish.

His main areas of study include Indigenous research methods, Costumbre practices (traditional Indigenous customs), and Nahuatl concepts of Buen Vivir (harmonious way of living), specifically Chicahualiztli."