Distinguished Alumni Affiliates

In Fall 2018, the Huerta Center welcomed prestigious alumni with professional work that aligns with our mission to serve as Distinguished Alumni Affiliates. These esteemed alumni assist the Huerta Center in expanding our public profile and reaching new professional networks. We thank them for their willingness to support the Huerta Center.


(Click here to read bios)  

 

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Alumni Bios 

Peter Bratt 

Peter is an award-winning screenwriter and independent filmmaker whose latest production is "Dolores," a feature documentary about the life of social justice activist, Dolores Huerta – a film he co-produced with Grammy Award-winning musician, Carlos Santana. The film premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and has garnered a number of awards including Best Documentary Feature at both the San Francisco and Seattle International Film Festivals, among others.

Bratt’s first feature film, "Follow Me Home," premiered in competition at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival and won the Best Feature Film Audience Award that same year at the San Francisco International Film Festival. In 2009, he and his actor brother Benjamin produced, "La Mission," a feature film shot on location in their hometown of San Francisco. "La Mission," which Peter wrote and directed, premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and was the opening night film at the 2009 San Francisco International Film Festival, the 2009 New York International Latino Film Festival, and the 2009 Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles.

For his work on "La Mission," Peter received the prestigious Norman Lear Writer’s award and was one of 10 American independent filmmakers selected by Sundance and the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities to launch Sundance Film Forward – a program that uses film and conversation to excite and introduce a new generation to the power of story. Peter is also a San Francisco Film Commissioner and a long-time consultant for the Friendship House Association of American Indians, a non-profit serving the Bay Area’s Native population.

 

Jorge Klor de Alva, J.D., Ph.D.

Jorge is President, Nexus Research and Policy Center. He was formerly President of the University of Phoenix, board member of Apollo Group, Inc., and Chair and CEO of Apollo International, Inc., an independent global education company that served over 170,000 K-12 and higher education students, with operations in Europe, India and Latin America. He is also a former professor at the University of California-Berkeley and Princeton University.

He has over 40 years of experience working in higher education, teacher preparation, and consulting for school districts, teachers’ groups, the Educational Testing Service, the GRE, and the College Board. He served on the Advisory Council of the Smithsonian Institute and was appointed to the Blue Ribbon Panel responsible for updating the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History. He also served as a board member of the American Association of Higher Education and on an Advisory Council of the National Science Foundation.

He has published over 85 scholarly articles, is co-author of nine social studies textbooks, and has authored, co-authored or edited another fifteen books on related subjects. His most recent books include The Americans and The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century (both by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 2012). He has received a number of grants for his research, including from the Spanish and Mexican governments, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation. Among his awards he was a Fulbright Scholar, John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, Harry Frank Guggenheim grantee, and Getty Scholar at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities.

 

Julia Sweig, Ph.D

Julia is a practitioner, entrepreneur and scholar—three unique skills honed in 30 years of experience in policy think tanks, business and academia. All three came in particularly handy over the past decade: as one of the foremost U.S. authorities on Cuba, Julia leveraged her relationships to position herself at the crossroads of foreign policy and business during the historic opening of relations, formerly unimaginable in our generation. Julia’s ability to synthesize and communicate complex foreign policy issues for laypeople, achieving accessibility without sacrificing substance, has made her a popular primetime guest on CBS, CBSN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, BBC, NPR, and even Comedy Central’s Colbert Report. She holds a doctorate and master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Sweig is an award-winning, inter-disciplinary author whose books have become the standard reference in Latin American history and politics in universities across the United States and are read the world over. She was honored with a Distinguished Alumni award for outstanding professional achievement in 2011 from her undergraduate alma matter UC Santa Cruz, and delivered the commencement address in 2015. Currently a non-resident research fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin, and supported by a substantial Ford Foundation grant, she is completing a biography about Lady Bird Johnson, one of the leading American women of the 20th century, to be published by Random House in 2019.  Julia is fluent in Spanish and lives with her husband and children in the Washington, DC area.