UMass Amherst Alumna Aurora Vergara Figueroa Appointed Minister of Education of Colombia

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Aurora Vergara Figueroa, who earned her doctoral degree in sociology from UMass Amherst in 2013, was appointed Minister of Education of Colombia on Feb. 28.

A specialist in Diaspora Studies and Latino, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Vergara Figueroa was born in Cali on May 14, 1987 and grew up in Istmina (Chocó). The daughter of María Teresa Figueroa Rojas and Aristóbulo Vergara Montoya, she graduated in 2003 from the Escuela Normal Superior de las Mercedes de Istmina and obtained her bachelor’s degree in sociology in 2008 from Universidad del Valle-Cali-Colombia.

She was formerly a professor in the Department of Social Studies at Icesi University in Cali, Colombia, between 2012 and 2022.