Staff

María José Espinosa Carrillo

She/her/ella

Executive Director

María José Espinosa Carrillo is an economist and foreign policy expert with more than twelve years of experience in policy research, advocacy, and international relations. At CDA, María José has developed advocacy, program, and communication strategies that drive transformative action in U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean on issues including regional migration, climate, LGBTQ+ and women rights, and protections for refugees and migrants. She has played a key role in bringing voices from the region into the US policy debate and has crafted and led over twenty high-level U.S. delegations on fact-finding trips to Central America, Cuba, and the U.S.-Mexico border to educate US policymakers and other key stakeholders. Earlier in her career, María José worked as an international affairs analyst on economic, political, and social implications of U.S. relations with Asia and Oceania. She began her career as a professor in the School of Economics at the University of Havana.

María José was recognized by New America as one of the 2020 Latino National Security & Foreign Policy Next Generation Leaders. She holds an M.Sc. in Environmental Economics and Tourism from the Universitat de les Illes Balears in Spain; an M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Havana in Cuba; and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Havana.

Francisca Vigaud-Walsh

She/her/ella

Strategy and Advocacy Director

Francisca Vigaud-Walsh is an expert on the protection of refugees and other displaced people, with over twenty years of experience in humanitarian action. As an emergency responder, she has deployed to lead protection programs at the onset of conflict and natural disasters in 30+ countries across four continents. As a policy advisor, she has been influential in the development of U.S., UN, EU policy to protect the forcibly displaced. Francisca has carried out this work at several of the world’s leading humanitarian assistance agencies, including Catholic Relief Services, International Rescue Committee, the United Nations Refugee Agency, and at Refugees International, where she led their Women and Girls Program. Francisca most recently served in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. She began her career conducting refugee status determinations and resettlement eligibility verification throughout Africa.

Francisca is not new to CDA or work in the Americas. She was a long-time CDA consultant, developing and advocating for protection policy in support of people on the move in the Americas. She has also worked on humanitarian assistance policy in Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, and El Salvador, and she co-authored UNICEF’s Gender Based Guidelines for Adolescent Girls on the Move in Latin America and the Caribbean. Francisca also served as an expert on the OAS Working Group for Venezuelan refugees and migrants in 2018 and 2019. 

Francisca holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and is also certified by the Institute for International Criminal Investigations in atrocity crimes investigations, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.