Staff Bios
Raquel Blave-Gómez, Resident Director, earned her M.A. in British and American Literatures at the University of Deusto, Spain, and her M.A. in Hispanic Studies at the State University of New York at Albany. She is also an A.B.D. in 19th Century American Literature. Originally from the Basque Country, Spain, she taught Spanish for two years at SUNY Albany and at the University of Mary Washington, VA, where she also coordinated the Spanish Club and extracurricular activities in Spanish. She joined CIEE in 2007 as a language instructor. She speaks Spanish, English, and Basque.
Francisco Díez, Center Director, earned his M.A. in Applied Linguistics and Spanish Language Teaching from Michigan State University and is currently working on his Ph.D. in Sociolinguistics. Originally from Alicante, he studied at Sheffield Hallam University and Michigan State University, where he taught Spanish for two years. Francisco joined CIEE in 2000 as Resident Coordinator at the CIEE Study Center in Alicante, where he helped develop, produce, and run the socio-cultural and intercambios programs, and the Spanish language placement test. Since January 2006, Francisco has served as Center Director and is also the Resident Director of the Liberal Arts program. He speaks Spanish, English, and Catalan.
CIEE students in Alicante are also assisted by Jennifer Holleyman, Student Services Director; Manuel Sánchez, Administrative Coordinator; Beatriz Ortín Pérez, Student Services Assistant; and Felipe Molina, Technical and Administrative Coordinator.