Email: av48@nyu.edu

Email:hellindc@webster.edu

Dr Daniël Hellinger, PhD, is an Emeritus Professor of International Relations. After earning a PhD from Rutgers University and a short stint elsewhere, he joined the Webster University faculty in 1979. Dr Hellinger is an expert in Latin America. His most recent books are, Comparative Politics of Latin America: Democracy at Last? (Routledge, 3^rd edition, 2021), Global Security Watch: Venezuela (Praeger 2012), and Bolivarian Democracy in Venezuela: Participation, Politics and Culture (contributor, and co-editor with David Smilde, Duke University, 2011). Dr Hellinger has been a Senior Research Scholar at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, lectured at the Central University of Venezuela and the Shanghai Institute for Finance and Economics, and has been a Fulbright scholar at the Universidad Católica in Valparaíso, Chile, and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. He is a participating editor for Latin American Perspectives and was the founding Chair of the Executive Board for the Center for Democracy in the Americas in Washington D.C. He has provided over 60 export opinions supporting asylum petitions in the U.S., mostly about Venezuela.

Email: adrianjuris@gmail.com

Dr Tamara Adrián Hernandez is a practising lawyer and Professor of Law at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Universidad Metropolitana. She is a well-known LGBTI activist and a member of numerous LGBTI organisations. Currently, she acts as a representative of the Venezuelan LGBTI network and as the national coordinator of the Venezuelan Committee for Vulnerable Groups and Sexual Diversity. Furthermore, she is the Chair of IDAHO-T and the World Trans Secretary of ILGA. Her attempts to have her gender and name legally recognized have been unsuccessful so far.