Alfred MacAdam, Professor of Spanish, joined the faculty of Barnard in 1983. In addition to his teaching duties for and being co-chair of Barnard's Department of Spanish and Latin American Cultures, he is affiliated with the programs in Comparative Literature and Human Rights Studies. He previously taught at the University of Virginia, Yale University, and Princeton University.

Professor MacAdam's area of specialization is twentieth-century Latin-American narrative, a subject on which he has published three books and numerous articles. He is also a translator of Latin-American fiction and has translated novels by Reinaldo Arenas, Alejo Carpentier, José Donoso, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Osvaldo Soriano.

From 1984 to 2004, MacAdam was the editor of Review: Latin American Literature and Arts, a publication of the Americas Society. This biannual magazine presents work by Latin-American writers not yet known to English-speaking audiences as well as unknown texts by already established writers.