Guillermo Gorrin Castellano is a political scientist from Caracas, Venezuela with interests in conflict resolution, immigration, international security, and serving refugees and displaced peoples. He obtained a bachelor’s degree from St. Olaf College in Political Science. In recent years, he has been working in the legal industry assisting foreign nationals with business, humanitarian, and family immigration matters. Now as a Master of Human Rights candidate, he aims to focus his research on efforts to control, reduce, and ban the use of anti-personnel mines and cluster bombs around the globe. His areas of study are Latin America and Southern Africa, but also extend to other conflict-intensive regions. He also wants to incorporate the effects of these ordinances on forced migration, specifically in the Venezuela-Colombia border and the Mozambican northern regions.
Guillermo lived in the Kingdom of Eswatini for two years, where his interests for de-mining sparked after volunteering with the local efforts as an interpreter. As an asylee himself, Guillermo wants to produce meaningful research that assists others who have endured forced migration to be better assisted by their host countries.
In his free time, Guillermo enjoys learning other languages and writing. He has contributed to the Star Tribune and other local media outlets. He also enjoys volunteering with local organizations, including the Minnesota Anti-sex Trafficking Project, the Minnesota Family Court Project, various local legal clinics, and grassroot organizations raising awareness towards the Venezuelan crisis.