Kaitlin E. Thomas

Dr. Kaitlin E. Thomas is an associate professor of Spanish and the world languages coordinator at Norwich University. Her research and scholarship focus on 20th- and 21st-century Hispanic cultural studies, with an emphasis on borders, migration, performance, social media, and transcultural identity. The issues that most interest her as a scholar are the recast, renegotiated, and emergent U.S. and Hispanic perspectives that result from trans-border cultural and national fusion, documented and undocumented immigration, and the evolution and impact of domestic and international policies, and how these manifest within cultural spheres.

In addition to her formal training, Thomas has completed non-degree studies with the Council on International Educational Exchange in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Sevilla, Spain; the Centro Panamericano de Idiomas in Guanacaste, Costa Rica; the Universidad Antonio de Nebrija in Madrid, Spain; and the Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas” in La Libertad, El Salvador. Beyond her degrees, she holds a graduate certificate in TESOL from the University of Maryland and interpreting and translation certifications from the Maryland Judiciary System.

At Norwich, she teaches Beginning Spanish I and II, Intermediate Spanish I and II, Advanced Spanish I and II, and the special topics courses Latinos/as in the U.S., Border Narratives, Immigration Nation, El Narco, Music and Politics in Latin America, Contemporary Cuba, and La Hashtag Nation. She serves as academic advisor for all declared Spanish majors and minors and as secondary advisor for all Chinese minors, and she mentors student fellows in the Honors Program and the Undergraduate Research Program through independent projects. Thomas is the founding organizer and chapter advisor of the Sigma Delta Pi Spanish Honors Fraternity on campus, and she has served as a faculty fellow for the Center for Global Resilience and Security.

Thomas is actively engaged in service as a member of several curriculum development task forces and committees focused on outreach, recruitment, and retention for the Department of Global Humanities and the College of Arts and Sciences. She collaborates with the Office of Academic Research, the Peace and War Center, the School of Nursing, the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and the School of Cybersecurity and Advanced Computing to design and implement workshops, guest speaker visits, and interdisciplinary events. These initiatives highlight the value and presence of world languages and cultures at Norwich and beyond, and create practical, meaningful pathways for students to study languages and apply them in their professional and personal lives. She maintains a vigorous research agenda and is affiliated with, and a frequent contributor to, six world languages organizations and two special interest groups within them. Her research and writing have appeared in the Journal of Peace and War Studies, Popular Culture Review, Hispania, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, and Public Radio International, among other outlets.

Ph.D. in Hispanic studies, University of Birmingham (U.K.)
M.A. in Latin American and Spanish language and literature, New York University (Madrid)
B.A. in Hispanic studies, Washington College
B.A. in music, Washington College

Kaitlin Thomas conducts research in 20th/21st century Hispanic cultural studies with an emphasis on borders, migration, performance, social media, and transcultural identity. The issues that most interest her as a scholar are the re-casted, re-negotiated, and emergent U.S. and Hispanic perspectives resulting from trans-border cultural and national fusion, (un)documented immigration to the U.S., the evolution and impact of domestic and international policies, and how these manifest within cultural spheres. 

Her research journey took a more circuitous route than many of her peers. After high school, she attended a small college on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, taking multiple language classes every semester and looking for internships out in the community where she could use Spanish. One of those internships wound up with the local public school system, where she worked as a bilingual liaison, migrant educator, school interventionist, interpreter, and more for several years after graduating. After a few years, graduate school took her to Madrid, Spain and then returned to the States to begin teaching at the university level while resuming some of the bilingual community liaison work before moving into a Ph.D. program and eventually to Norwich. 

Thomas actively mentors students, advising them to figure out what the question, issue, or subject is that gets you fired up and/or that you spend your free time looking in to, and pursue it as a research topic. She collaborates with colleagues at Norwich and beyond, including a team of researchers at UVM that is working on a five-year project titled, “Social Media Sentiment and Forced Migration Narratives."

HN 101 Immigration Nation
HN 101 When Music Meets Power
SP 121 Beginning Spanish I
SP 122 Beginning Spanish II
SP 205 Intermediate Spanish I
SP 206 Intermediate Spanish II
SP 301 Advanced Spanish I (Conversation)
SP 302 Advanced Spanish II (Composition)
SP 350 Special Topics
SP 364 Cuba hoy
SP 364 El Narco
SP 364 EN Music and Politics in Latin America
SP 367 U.S. Latinos/as
SP 415 Senior Seminar
SP 421 Reading and Research in Spanish Literature and Culture

“Migration Sells: The Migrant Influencer as Hidden Persuader and Counter-Public”. Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture. Accepted and forthcoming, Winter 2027.

“The Role of Music and Hashtag Activism in Chile’s 2019 Protests”. Journal of Peace and War Studies. vol. 7, Oct. 2025, pp. 83-96, fall 2025.

“Pepe versus Kermit: A Memetic Battleground about Latino/a-centric Immigration and Policy”. Popular Culture Review, vol. 34, no. 1, spring 2023.