Dr. Rocío Nuñez Shea

Director of Graduate Studies

Rocío Núñez Shea is the Director of Graduate Studies at the Mariposa DR Foundation. She prepares graduating students for college and continued education, and works with Mariposas Volando--alumni of the foundation-in post graduate placement. 

Rocio is a proud Dominican American, born and raised in New York City. She spent many summers in the country as a child, and has fond memories of her time there with her grandmother. She spent the last year on the island with her husband and two young children where they experienced the beauty of the Dominican Republic firsthand.

She is a filmmaker and scholar who has taught at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and at Ithaca College’s Roy H. Park School of Communications. She received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and her undergraduate degree from Duke University. Her documentary work focuses on women and POC in the media, with a special emphasis on the hidden impacts of underrepresented populations. She is developing a college course on the concept of the "woke child" exploring how children's literature and programming has shifted to encourage activism in even the youngest children. 

Her favorite part of working at the Mariposa DR Foundation is engaging with the girls and watching them learn about the world outside Cabarete. She considers her work with the foundation a career high, and the influence the program and the girls have had on her has been life-changing.