The health and safety of our community remain a top priority. In order to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, the MBA/MS admissions office will not accept visitors or walk-ins. Candidates should contact us at FTMBA@umd.edu to adequately address your inquiry or set up a virtual consultation.

Latin MBA Association

Our mission is to represent Latinx MBA students and share our culture and heritage with the rest of our cohort to promote the importance of diversity and inclusion in society.

Our vision is to be a platform of people that help the entire Smith community reach goals. We are beyond our association. We celebrate diversity and practice inclusion, being a club that welcome people from different communities to learn, enjoy and grow.

Our objectives are: spread our cultural heritage with the Smith MBA community, design and implement events that add value to our careers in terms of network and preparation to the professional life post-MBA and reinforce the community beyond classrooms by implementing affinity events.

Email us at lambasa@marylandsmith.umd.edu or visit our Facebook or LinkedIn pages.

Board Members

Samantha Lara Torres

President
samantha.laratorres@marylandsmith.umd.edu

Samantha received her bachelor's degree in economics and finance from Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico City. Samantha has 6 years of corporate finance experience in Nissan and INFINITI. Outside of classes, Samantha enjoys traveling, practicing different kind of sports and hanging out with her family and friends.

Fun Fact

I am mexican but my DNA is from 3 different continents and 11 different countries.

Haley Vasquez

Vice President of Finance
haley.vasquez@marylandsmith.umd.edu

I started my career as a math teacher where I had hundreds of kids who pushed me to learn how to better articulate my thinking in order to build their understanding and also to communicate effectively with various stakeholders. This experience allowed me to collaborate with other educators to accomplish a shared goal of closing gaps in equity and opportunity for students. I then transitioned into my role as an operations manager for the largest KIPP DC campus where I managed and balanced all operational projects, programs, and vendors. More importantly, this role allowed me to leverage my quantitative reasoning skills to effectively manage school budgets of more than $100K and to think critically when analyzing our spending to evaluate whether we truly supporting our students and communities. That is what led me to pursue an MBA from UMD Smith as I wanted to continue to build the financial knowledge needed to support not only students, but also families, generations, and communities.

Fun Fact

I love going to the gym and have actively gained 25 pounds since the pandemic.