Email: juliana.vengoechea@javeriana.edu.co

Juliana Maria Vengoecheo Barrios is Director of the Refugee Law Clinic at the School of Law at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota.  Most cases are Cubans who come through Venezuela. The legal clinic has eight years of practice representing Cuban asylum seekers, among others from diverse nationalities, before the Colombian refugee authority.  Her expertise as Country of Origin Information expert on Cuba and other countries in the Caribbean began with her work as a Michigan Law Program in Refugee and Asylum Law Fellow at the Caribbean Unit of UNHCR in Washington DC where she worked both on RSDs and resettlements with UNHCR as well as on a study mission of Cuban longstayers in the Bahamas.

Email: mette.berg@anthro.ox.ac.uk

Dr Berg is an anthropologist, who has worked on Cuba and its diaspora since 1998. She is the author of ‘Diasporic Generation: Memory, Politics and Nation among Cubans in Spain’ (Berghahn Books, 2011) as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. Dr Berg holds a DPhil degree from St Antony’s College, Oxford, and a BA and MPhil from Copenhagen University.

email: rcharding@valdosta.edu

Robert C. Harding is Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of International Studies at Valdosta State University in Georgia, USA. Dr. Harding holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in International Studies from the University of Miami (Florida, USA) as well as an M.A. in Spanish from the University of Louisville (Kentucky, USA). He is a specialist in Latin American politics, space policy, and global security. Dr. Harding is the author of four books, including two on Panama, multiple book chapters, as well as many articles on various aspects of Latin American politics and development. He has been an invited presenter at numerous conferences in the US, Canada, Latin America, and Europe, and he has traveled, studied, and researched in over thirty countries in Latin America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia, including two extended periods in Cuba.

Email: legalallen@aol.com

Wilfredo Allen is an attorney and member of the Florida Bar. He was a member of the Cuban American Bar association until 2008. He worked as an attorney for Human Rights in Cuba, a Non-profit organisation that provided information about human rights in Cuba, presenting cases before the United Nations Human Rights Commission and meeting with Cuban refugees. He also worked as an attorney for the Centre for Human Rights where he helped prepare reports on human rights in Cuba. As an Immigration attorney in the US he has worked in many cases with Cubans that have left the island. He has given expert testimony in various courts.

He holds an International studies degree from the Florida State University; Post graduate studies in Spanish literature from the University of Valencia; Graduate courses in international studies from the University of Miami, masters in social work from the University of Barry and a Juris Doctor from the University of Miami.