Haiti expert Robert Maguire will talk about the nation’s recovery and reconstruction in the wake of last year’s devastating earthquake during a presentation at UCF.

Maguire’s presentation, organized by the UCF Global Perspectives office, is part of the “Haiti Speaker Series,” and it will begin at 3 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 17, in the Cape Florida Ballroom of the Student Union. The event is free and open to the public.

Maguire is the director of programs in international affairs at Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C.. He has been involved with Haiti since the mid-1970s through affiliations with the Inter-American Foundation; the U.S. Department of State; and Johns Hopkins, Brown and Georgetown universities.

Since 1990, Maguire has served as chair of Haiti Advanced Area Studies at the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute.

He was previously the Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. While at the institute, Maguire conducted research on how decisions regarding international resources have affected stability in Haiti, including why international efforts have had trouble achieving and sustaining success there.

In December 2001, Maguire received Rockefeller Foundation support for his work on Haiti at Trinity College, allowing him to extend his work into issues related to Haitian diaspora populations. He previously directed the Georgetown University Haiti Program, which served as a vehicle for the sharing of information and analysis on issues linked to Haiti and to U.S.-Haiti policy.

In addition to the Global Perspectives Office, sponsors and partners include UCF’s Task Force H.O.P.E.; the UCF Haitian Studies Project; the UCF Global Peace and Security Studies Program; the UCF Political Science Department; the UCF Diplomacy Program; the UCF Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies Program; The Sibille H. Pritchard Global Peace Fellowship Program; the UCF International Services Center; the UCF Office of Internationalization; UCF LIFE; and the Global Connections Foundation.

For a full list of upcoming events or to learn more about the Global Perspectives Office, visit http://ucfglobalperspectives.org or follow the office on Twitter at http://twitter.com/UCF_Global.