Luis Martín-Estudillo, professor and collegiate scholar in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will serve as the next director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies (OCAS). His appointment will begin July 1. 

“We are very excited that Professor Martín-Estudillo has agreed to lead the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies into its next chapter,” said Kristy Nabhan-Warren, associate vice president for research. “He brings a wealth of international connections, fresh ideas, and a proven track record of collaboration across units and disciplines here at Iowa and beyond. The search committee was deeply impressed with his vision for the center, and the campus feedback we solicited confirmed and amplified our excitement for new possibilities for OCAS.”

For more than four decades, the OCAS has served as an interdisciplinary hub for artists, scholars, and researchers who bridge campus with the larger world. 

Situated on Church Street on the north end of campus, the center provides offices for six fellows-in-residence each semester, as well as funding for a major annual humanities conference, small group collaborations, and faculty book completion workshops, along with many other programs. The center is also a nexus for university-community activities, including lectures, workshops, and performances.

“I’m tremendously excited to lead a productive, inspiring center—one that is open to our whole community of researchers, scholars and artists at every stage of their studies and careers and attracts the presence of enriching national and international guests. I envision a global, interdisciplinary research center with a humanistic ethos,” said Martín-Estudillo.

Martín-Estudillo specializes in modern and contemporary Spanish cultural and intellectual history and criticism. He has also published broadly on early modern topics and visual culture. His scholarship has appeared in journals such as Goya, Hispanic Review, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Ínsula, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Pasajes: Revista de Pensamiento Contemporáneo and Romance Quarterly. He is the Executive Editor of the Hispanic Issues book series and of the journal Hispanic Issues Online.

A recipient of three awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Martín-Estudillo has also won several awards from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, including the Collegiate Teaching Award, the Dean's Scholar Award, the Collegiate Scholar Award. 

His recently authored and edited books include: Filosofía y tiempo final (2011), The Rise of Euroskepticism: Europe and Its Critics in Spanish Culture (2018) Despertarse de Europa. Arte, literatura, euroescepticismo (2019) and Goya and the Mystery of Reading, for which he won the 2023 Goldberg Prize.

Martín-Estudillo will replace Teresa Mangum, professor in the Departments of Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies and English, who is retiring after serving as the OCAS director since 2010. 

The OCAS is a unit of the Office of the Vice President for Research.