Paulo Contreras

Adjunct Professor

Ph.D., University of Connecticut

Areas of Specialty

Modern Latin American History; U.S.-Latin American Relations, U.S. Foreign Relations in the 20th Century

Current Research Interests

Latin America in the Cold War; Peru and the internal armed conflict (1980-2000)

Biography

Paulo Contreras has been teaching history for nearly fifteen years, for the past 12 years at the UConn Hartford and Avery Point campuses. He has a Ph.D. in Latin American History, an M.A. in History, and a B.A. in Political Science and History all from the University of Connecticut. His doctoral dissertation examines U.S.-Peruvian relations during the Alliance for Progress in the 1960s. At UConn Contreras has taught many Latin American history and Latino & Latin American Studies courses. He is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Outstanding Adjunct Teaching Award.

He was born in Lima, Peru and came to the United States at the age of fifteen seeking better educational opportunities. Growing up in Peru, Contreras has experienced and lived through several of the topics and events that are explored in the courses he teaches at UConn, such as the persistent struggle for democracy, economic development, and social justice, military dictatorship, economic chaos, revolutionary politics, and migration. He encourages his students to systematically analyze and think critically about the historical processes that constructed the world they live in while making history relevant to their present-day lives.