Yairamaren Román Maldonado, Ph.D.

Pronouns: she/her/ella

As a media specialist, Yairamaren holds expertise in Latin/o American and Caribbean digital media and community-centered practices. Her work with media began in 2008, when she worked with Afro-Caribbean immigrants and other communities in Puerto Rico to conduct community-based research that focused on storytelling and photography.

“My communications and narrative change work builds anti-colonial narratives and media practices that center the self-determination, stories, and voices of BIPOC communities,” she says.

Before joining Corporate Accountability, Yairamaren was the Communications and Narrative Change Manager at the California Domestic Workers Coalition. She worked with hundreds of immigrant working women to advance rights for the industry through powerful and strategic storytelling. But her interest in challenging corporate abuse stems from her upbringing in Puerto Rico, where, to this day, corporations hold communities hostage to systemic erasure and displacement through privatization, debt, and destabilization of the island’s economy.

Yairamaren holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras and a Master’s degree in Spanish Language and Literatures from the San Francisco State University. While completing her Ph.D. in Latin American & Caribbean Literatures and New Media at UC-Berkeley, Yairamaren engaged in digital storytelling collaborations with immigrant communities on the San Diego/Tijuana border and underserved youth living in Puerto Rico through partnerships with non-profit organizations.

In addition to her media work, Yairamaren is also a writer who works on cultural and narrative change strategies. Outside of her work at Corporate Accountability, she is a resident humanist at a cultural center in Puerto Rico, where she offers storytelling, poetry and healing workshops for women.