Meet Dr. Dillon

About Dr. Michael Dillon

Michael F. Dillon is a professor of Spanish, chair of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages, and director of Morehouse Pan-African Global Experience (MPAGE) at Morehouse College.

Prior to joining the Morehouse faculty, he was an associate professor and learning management system coordinator for Piedmont College. 

Dr. Dillon’s graduate studies include a Ph.D. in Romance Languages, an M.A. in Spanish Applied Linguistics, and an M.A. in Educational Technology.  In addition, he earned a Quality Matters (QM) Teaching Online Certificate, a Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies, and a Graduate Certificate in Educational Technology.

His research focuses on three areas. The first area builds on his dissertation research related to Ecuadorian cinema within the broader Latin American cinematic context; the second expands his research in other regional cinemas and their visual representations; and the third pertains to educational technology and applied linguistics, which is the impact of study abroad and online education in language acquisition.

In 2014, the Ecuadorean National Film Archive published his book Ecuadorian Cinema Posters: 1969-2013. The research for this project took more than three years, and involved both individual and collaborative aspects, and is the first project of its kind in Ecuador. His investigation centered on digitally restoring, cataloging and classifying all graphic artwork in the Film Archive’s possession and presenting the first introductory study of Ecuadorian Film posters. In 2016, the Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance published his article “Civilization and Barbarism in Ecuadorian television and cinema: The case of the adaptations of Cumandá, La Tigra and Los Sangurimas” a unique adaptation analysis from the ecocritical point of view.

He has collaborated with Puerto Rican director Ariel Orama López and the design of film posters for his short films in recent years, including: One (2018), Mariano (2018), #Bóxers (2018), 2Hoom (2020), and [Y] (2020). 

Complementing his film and visual studies research is his educational technology background. He has implemented digital humanities projects, new media art, and online courses using open source solutions such as Joomla, WordPress, Moodle, Processing, Python, QGIS, Raspberry Pi, R, Arduino, among others.