I'm Valentina, a 27 year old from Caracas, Venezuela. I completed my undergrad at Brown University where I studied Computer Science and International Development Studies, and now work full-time as a Data Analyst at Disney Streaming. This website has some projects and papers I've worked on over the years! You can reach out to me at vcanoarcay@gmail.com.
Sochiatrist
Research Assistant for the Brown Human Computer Interaction group, on a project that works on predicting mental health issues from naturally-occurring social and health-tracking data.
Anxi
Mental health intervention with a pulse sensor, mood light orb and emergency-button watch that promotes mindfulness and provides help for anxiety disorders.
Autocorrect
Word suggestion engine built in Java with: underlying recursive prefix tree (trie) implementation; suggestions based on Levenshtein edit distance, prefix matching and whitespace testing; and rankings by unigram and bigram frequency.
DjUp
Design and wireframe for DjUp, a mobile app that crowdsources the music playlist at a party.
Maduro Quotes
Chrome extension that adds a quote to any mention of Nicolás Maduro (Venezuelan president) on a webpage.
Shell
UNIX shell implementation in C from scratch with: command line parsing, basic commands, I/O redirection, signal handling, and foreground and background job control.
Distributors Portal
Wireframe of a new route and territory planning software built for small distributors in Latin America to be able to visualize enterprise supply chain management software.
Tetris
Implementation of the classic tile-matching puzzle game Tetris, and first Java applet I ever coded from scratch.
Historical Narratives of Denial of Racism and the Impact of Hugo Chávez on Racial Discourse in Venezuela
This paper aims to examine several narratives that have perpetuated the denial of racism throughout Venezuelan history, analyze the impact of President Hugo Chávez's discourse and policy implementation in regards to racial inequality, and emphasize the importance of addressing the topic of race in Venezuela. This research was conducted as my final Capstone project for the International Development Studies major at Brown.
Food Scarcity, Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAP), and Political Clientelism in Venezuela during Nicolas Maduro’s presidency
Hunger levels in Venezuela have skyrocketed in recent years. With this crisis, the government has created systems to provide food to those in need. This paper analyzes the CLAP system, arguing that it is a form of political clientelism and manipulation between the Maduro government and the most vulnerable population of Venezuela.
Coping with Personhood through the Illustrations of Carolina Hicks:
An Exploration of Latinidad, Identity, Trauma Healing, and Third World Feminism
This paper explores the ways in which Carolina Hick's illustrations and personal experiences fall into the project of Third World Feminism, through Gloria Anzaldúa's concept of nepantla, Audre Lorde's analysis of the erotic, and Juana María Rodríguez's notions of queer latinidad.
¿Qué dirán de mí si un día aparezco muerta?: Feminicide, Latinidad, and State Violence from the lens of Regina José Galindo
In this paper I examine the work of Guatemalan artist Regina José Galindo, in conversation with the definition of feminicide that Rosa Linda Fregoso and Cynthia Bejarano present in A Cartography of Feminicide in the Américas.
Classism, Racism, and the Complexities of Afro Latinidad:
A Look into the History of Whitening, Political Movements, and Reggaetón, and their Relationship to Black Folklore
How is classism and racism intertwined in Latin America? Is Latin America "café con leche" or "café y leche"? How does reggaetón represent Blackness? This paper seeks to provide an overview of Afro Latinidad from the lens of history and music.
Good Governance, International Aid, and its Implications for Development
By exploring different points of view in regards to the question of international aid in developing countries, and using Chile as a case study, this paper argues that democratic accountability and good governance are essential for development; therefore, international aid should be focused on building state capacities.
Venezuela Case Study Data Analysis
This study takes 8 data sets (GDP growth, fuel exports, inflation, intentional homicides, gini coefficient, % poor households, debt stock, and government spending) to analyze how globalization has affected Venezuela in relation to its government's recent political and economic measures.