Alex Bare is a Program Associate for Colombia, Drug Policy, and Venezuela at WOLA, providing programmatic support in areas including research, media publications, and outreach. Originally from rural Iowa, he studied international relations and Spanish at the University of Iowa on a full scholarship and graduated in 2019 with honors.
His first contact with Latin America was a semester study abroad program in Cochabamba, Bolivia where he studied the country’s political and social trajectory. After graduation, he won a U.S. Department of State Fulbright English teaching assistantship in Colombia for two years, first teaching at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla and then at the SENA Center of Leather and Textile Manufacturing in Bogotá. During his time there, he made social media content teaching English and discussing U.S., Colombian, and Venezuelan politics and also translating costeño slang to English.
In addition to his native English, he is an advanced speaker of Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic.
