Welcome to the Spanish Department of NOVA’s Alexandria Campus!
The Spanish faculty is made up of professors with a wide range of interests, talents and experiences. Our offices are located in the Bisdorf Building, AA 252. We hope to meet you soon!
(Pictured L to R: Profs. Olson, Trostle, Carter, Davis & Arana)
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Alfred Carter
Email: ajcarter@nvcc.edu
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Martha E. Davis, Ph.D.
Professor of Spanish
Assistant Dean, World Languages
Email: mdavis@nvcc.edu
Telephone: (703) 845-6586
Follow @ProfaDavis
Martha Davis has taught Spanish at the Alexandria Campus since Fall 2008. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii to a military family, she grew up in Alexandria and graduated from Mt. Vernon High School. While studying Spanish and Government at the College of William and Mary, she spent a semester at the Universidad de Salamanca. After graduating from W&M, she returned to Spain, where she taught English at the Colegio de la Asunción in Ponferrada, León.
Professor Davis earned her M.A. in Spanish from Loyola University Chicago and her Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from Catholic University. She also completed graduate coursework at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont and Guadlajara, Mexico. While a student at Catholic, she worked as a graduate assistant and adjunct instructor, teaching Spanish language and literature courses, and twice received the Department of Modern Languages’ Outstanding Instructor Award. She has also taught at the Virginia Governor’s Spanish Language Academy and George Washington University. Her research interests include twentieth-century Spanish and Latin American short fiction and the use of technology in second language acquisition.
Professor Davis has proudly shown examples of her NOVA students’ work in her presentation entitled “Engaging Language Communities through Student Video Projects” at the 2010 and 2011 Fulbright Language Teaching Assistants Conference and the 2011 Annual Convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Conference (ACTFL).
When she is not in the classroom, Professor Davis enjoys running and spending time with her two young daughters.
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Victor Oliver
Adjunct Professor of Spanish
Email: voliver@nvcc.edu
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Robert Olson
Adjunct Professor of Spanish
Email: rolson@nvcc.edu
Telephone: (202) 320-0193
Bob Olson has been an Adjunct Professor at NVCC since 2007. Bob was born in Taos, New Mexico, and raised in the Southwest. He received an appointment to the United States Military Academy but instead of attending West Point he was selected as an “Exchange Cadet” to the Argentine Military Academy as part of President Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress. He earned an MA in Spanish and Latin American Studies from Middlebury College, which included a year of academic studies in Spain. He was a Spanish language professor at the United States Military Academy for three years. Among his many tours of duty as a US Army Officer he served with the US Army Special Warfare Center in Central and South America, and he was assigned to the US Embassy in Buenos Aries as an Army Attaché during the Malvinas/Falklands War. Bob has been in every country in the Americas with the exception of Cuba. After retiring from active duty with 27 years of uniformed service he worked for an additional 19 years as an Army and Department of Defense Civilian. On the Army Staff he was the Deputy Division Chief of the Politico Military Division. Bob helped establish the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at National Defense University and was a Dean at National Defense University. He retired from government service in 2006.
When not teaching Bob spends a lot of time with his grown children and grandchildren.
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Amanda Trostle
Assistant Profesor of Spanish
Email: atrostle@nvcc.edu
Telephone: (703) 933-3985
Professor Trostle attended Oberlin College, where she double majored in Creative Writing/Anthropology and minored in Spanish. She spent a semester in Seville, Spain at the Center for Cross Cultural Studies and has been back to Spain several times, traveling extensively throughout the country. She received her M.A. in Spanish from American University.
Before coming to NOVA full-time, Professor Trostle taught Spanish at Thomas A. Edison High School in Fairfax County for ten years. During her tenure there, she was featured in a teacher training video for Fairfax County regarding Best Practices and Student Engagement in the Classroom.
Professor Trostle loves teaching because she enjoys sharing her passion for language and culture as well as showing students how learning a language can be an enjoyable experience. She has over 13 years of experience in the classroom.
Her research interests include Second Language Acquisition, the Era of the Cold War in Latin America, and current socio-political movements in Latin America. She is a regular presenter at state and local conferences.
She enjoys reading, playing guitar, hiking and spending time with her children.