Carolina Davila and Sheraz Iqbal have been appointed assistant directors of La Casa Cultural and the Asian American Cultural Center, respectively, Associate Vice President for Student Life Burgwell Howard announced in a Thursday email to colleagues in the Yale College Dean’s Office.

Davila, who comes to Yale after having served as a Residence Hall Director at the University of Connecticut, will begin on June 30, while Iqbal, who recently completed his master’s degree in Higher Education Student Personnel at the University of Florida, will begin on July 5.

Iqbal, a native of Long Island, New York, succeeds Raymond Firmalino, who was appointed assistant director of the AACC last August. Firmalino later took on the role of interim director but resigned from both positions in April after coming under criticism from many of the center’s staff members and peer liaisons.  Davila, a native of Puerto Rico via Boston, will succeed Maclovia Quintana ’11 FES ’14, who was appointed interim assistant director of La Casa last August.

At UConn, Davila oversaw a residential area housing between 600 and 1,400 students, supervised numerous residential assistants and an assistant residence hall director and participated in several department and university committees, according to Howard’s email. Additionally, Davila advised a student organization focused on social justice education, oversaw programmatic efforts for a global-themed residential learning community and served on the department diversity task force. 

Davila, a first-generation college student, received her bachelor’s degree in Communication Disorders with a minor in Spanish from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and her master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from the University of Pennsylvania.

Before his time at the University of Florida, Iqbal, who also identifies as a first-generation college student, served for several years as an area coordinator in the Office of Residential Education at Colby-Sawyer College, where he oversaw several residence halls and supervised staff and programming for students on campus, according to Howard’s email.

Iqbal earned his undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Ithaca College in upstate New York.

This story has been updated to include Maclovia Quintana’s class years.