Chile Information Project

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About CHIP - The Chile Information Project
CHIP is a comprehensive and ongoing effort to provide English speakers with the most accurate information about Chile. Through the help of journalists, professors and university interns passionate about Chile, we have developed an authoritative resource on Chilean human rights, environment, news, politics, culture and living in Chile for expatriates and students studying abroad.

We host the Human Rights Legacy Tour, tours of Santiago, ValparaÃso, Vi“a del Mar and the Wine Country. View our Tours and Travel Packages Here.

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Av. Santa Maria 227, Office 12
Santiago, Chile

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Who We Are



Apart from the Chileans on staff, we are all expats or exchange students living in Santiago right now. This makes us the best source of up-to-date information for other expats, students and travelers.

Browse the profiles of our staff. Learn about where we come from, and why we're dedicated to continually gathering the best, most accurate information about Chile!






Steve Anderson - Owner, Publisher: CHIP, The Santiago Times


Publisher and journalist Steve Anderson hails from Fayetteville, Arkansas Ò where he once served as a VISTA volunteer, taught school, practiced law and involved himself in community affairs as a JP on the local Quorum Court.
While busy making other plans, force majuere (she's gone but not forgotten) took him to Chile in 1987. He launched the Chile Information Project (CHIP) in 1990 as a hobby and a spin-off from a project that began while working at the Catholic Church's Vicaria of Solidarity.

After stringing for various international mining and fruit export publications, he now is trying to make his hobby into a business - starting a university-level journalism project for international students and perfecting The Santiago Times. When he can, he spends time at his farm outside of Puerto Montt - planting blueberries - or his Five-Acres-And-Independence parcela in Caleu, an hour from Santiago. And, of course, he is with his son Ray, age 9, as much as possible.






Elaine Ayo - Writer


Elaine Ayo is a senior at the University of Miami in Florida with a dual concentration in Journalism and Latin American Studies. She is studying at the Universidad Cat?lica for two semesters and working at the Santiago Times in her spare time.
A native of San Antonio, Texas, Elaine came to Chile looking to learn more about the country and improve her Spanish. Before working for the Santiago Times, Elaine has worked for her university paper and interned at the Miami Herald, part of which was spent covering and living through one of the busiest hurricane seasons on record. Elaine thought Santiago would be an excellent place to study because of its rich culture, booming economy and absence of hurricanes.






Laurel Bernstein - Writer, The Santiago Times
Laurel comes to the Santiago Times from Washington, D.C., where she was squandering thousands of dollars worth of university education working as a "Nanny to the Stars." Writing for the paper is Laurel's attempt to fulfill life-long journalistic ambitions while seeking relief from the reverse culture shock she suffered after moving from Miami to D.C. Miami is where she caught the Latin American travel bug and has since traveled to Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, Brazil, and Haiti and lived in the Dominican Republic. She's very happy to add Chile to the list and even happier to finally be doing something that remotely relates to her college education.

While in Chile, Laurel hopes to meet Chileans, see as much of the country as possible, and finally crack the case of the rampant Chilean mullet.








John Baker - Contributor


Johnny Baker is a professional writer retiring from a 40-year career that began with newspaper journalism, but quickly segueing into private enterprise and government. He has taught creative writing at the undergraduate level, served as the speachwriter to the governor of Oregon, and has held a variety of mid-level communications management positions with several Fortune 500 corporations.
Baker is expatriating to South America, where he will continue to work on his satirical novel Lemmings in Freefall, teach English as a Second Language, contribute to the Santiago Times, and pursue his passions for skiing, skydiving, climbing, trekking and kayaking.






Nathan Crooks - Editor, The Santiago Times



A recent graduate from the University of Toronto (Trinity College), Nathan completed a Specialist in Political Science, a Major in Ibero-American Studies and a Minor in Spanish.

Originally from Clarion, Pennsylvania, Nathan has spent considerable time in Latin America, as a Rotary exchange student in Caracas, Venezuela and working for Amnesty International in Santiago de Chile. Nathan has also studied in Australia, Mexico, and the Czech Republic.

Nathan was looking for a way to come back to Chile and is happy to be working at the Santiago Times. Once a strict vegetarian for five years, Nathan can now be found at any local Domino scarfing down charazcos italianos.

Besides politics and journalism, Nathan is interested in e-commerce, outdoor activities, photography, among other things. Nathan runs the e-commerce division of his family's clothing company, FLCROOKS, from wherever in the world he may find himself.






Alejandra Diaz - Office Manager


Alejandra was born in Santiago and studied advertising at the University of Santiago. She has worked for CHIP since 1994 and has two teenaged daughters Ò Vera and Maga.

Alejandra has made a valiant effort over the years to learn English, but has finally decided that she is linguistically challenged. Still, she more than makes up for her English-language learning handicap with an abundance of good cheer and lots of hard work - handling CHIP finances and keeping the offices in good running order.





Heather Domnick - Writer, The Chile Information Project
Heather Domnick began her life in Paradise California and has been on the go ever since, traversing the globe from Peru to Hong Kong (and many places in between) with her corporate expat parents. Following her high school graduation from Singapore American School and a brief stint in Thailand, she went on to university in Canberra, Australia.

After leaving Australia for California to work at a local social services agency, Heather decided that the grass (or in this case, the cornfield) was greener in Peoria Illinois, and so set off with a suitcase and a fresh drivers license (she almost didn't pass) not knowing that her life was about to change dramatically.

Just nine months into her stay and much to her father's surprise, she met and married Jake after only six weeks of dating. But all doubts were recently put to rest when the couple recently celebrated their tenth not-too-romantic-'cause-I-didn't-have-a-sitter wedding anniversary with their three fantastic children, all of whom enjoy life and school in Santiago, especially the youngest who often declares that he loves this place " 'cause the casts are gooder here." His parents keep a running tab at ClÃnica Las Condes.








Nate Doyle - Writer, The Santiago Times
Hailing from a small town in western Illinois, Nate graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a business degree in Accountancy. He spent three laborious years in public accounting before trading the view from his 14th floor Chicago office for the panoramic beauty of the Andes Mountains last February.

An avid sports fan, Nate has been moved to temporarily exchange his undying allegiance for the down-trodden Chicago Cubs to the less-than-stellar play of the University of Chile's soccer team. When he is not hard at work at the Santiago Times, Nate has been known to feed his caffeine addiction at the local cafe con piernas.

In addition to his contributions to the business section of the Santiago Times, Nate volunteers as an English teacher at a local vocational university.








Cristina Dunn, Editor The Santiago Times
Cristina recently graduated from Edinburgh University with a Ma in Spanish and History. Having worked for The Sunday Times and ITN she decided to return to Chile to unite her passions for Latin America and Journalism.
Cristina fell in love with Chile when she worked for The British Council for a year in 2003 to 2004 as part of her Spanish degree.

Unlike a lot of tourists and residents of "Santiasco" Cristina loves Chile's capital city and has adopted it as her home away from home. While in Chile Cristina hopes to learn as much as possible from the staff at The Santiago Times and practice as much Salsa Dancing as possible!








Kerry Rae Fleisher - Nightlife Editor, CHIP Travel
A native from the Washington D.C region, Kerry shocked absolutely no-one back in the U.S. when she announced her impromptu decision to teach English in Santiago and avoid committing to life plans. She had already fled the east coast once before, embarking into the UC Berkeley abyss where she spent two guilty years camouflaged as a hippie, one year playing bass for a mediocre yet earnest Cali band (Kantar), and countless hours writing academic fluff that sank without trace.
She can be seen slinking around Santiago's grocery store network looking for that "perfect red wine," extolling the virtue of auxiliary verbs to her classes, and tossing around Chilean slang in all the wrong contexts, to the pleasure of her engineering Duoc students in Maipu.








Laura Gillis - Writer, CHIP Travel


Laura graduated several years ago with a degree in Literature, History and French from NYU. After a couple years waiting tables in the Caribbean and traveling in Asia (mostly in the South East) she decided she wanted to learn Spanish, and maybe put her college education to use. After a year of various restaurant and office jobs at home in San Francisco, she heard about the Santiago Times, decided an English newspaper in Santiago sounded lovely, and moved here at the beginning of June 2006. Laura also served a short stint in 2001 as a bear trainer in the Moscow circus.





Patrick Hieger - Contributor, The Chile Information Project
Patrick has been living and working as an English teacher in Santiago since July, 2005. He studied creative writing and Spanish at the University of Missouri, his home state. His hobbies include long, difficult novels, walking, cooking and sewing. He owns and uses an antique Chilean typewriter. He is not blue.








Beatrice Lucy - Writer, The Santiago Times
Bea studies Spanish and Politics at the University of Bristol. She came to Chile with aim of improving her Spanish and quickly realized that 'Chilean' is a very different language from the Spanish she studies in the UK.

Belonging to the small group of blondes who live in Santiago, Bea is finally getting used to people pointing in street and even thinks she'll miss it when she goes home!








Chris MacLean - Contributor, The Santiago Times/CHIP Travel



As the son of international school teachers, Chris grew up traveling my entire life. Although born in Canada, he got on his first airplane at the age 6 weeks and has not looked back since. He has lived on 5 different continents in 7 different countries and has already seen 3 out of the 7 wonders of the world. Chris writes for the sports section of the McGill Tribune at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

While specializing in international relations and majoring in political science, Chris, deep down, is an aspiring travel writer and explorer. He is also and avid sports fan and addicted athlete. Basketball is his primary sport, but he's also played soccer since the age of five. He went to high school in Europe and was the goalie on the varsity team. His favorite team is the Montreal Canadiens (NHL).






Cynthia McMurry - Writer



From Minneapolis, Minnesota, Cynthia is studying International Relations and Spanish with a minor in Studio Art (painting and ceramics) at Tufts University, and would like to pursue a career in radio journalism after college. She•s spending her junior year abroad in Chile, and plans to spend the summer backpacking around South America.

Cynthia is slowly acclimating herself to life in Santiago--she loves the cheap wine, abundant fruit and palta-covered vienesas but is still scared to cross the street sometimes and not sure why everyone seems to be listening to Iron Maiden.






Cecile Loial - Writer, Sales Assistant



Even though Cecile is trying to juggle 3 languages at once she still maintains a level head in the office. Born in the French West Indies, she lives in Toulouse, France, and studies political science. She is outgoing and says that she doesn't think she will change the world but hopes to change a few minds along her way. Cecile's love of traveling and the outdoors brought her to Chile, which she heard was a beautiful country, and is looking forward to experiencing what it has to offer.






Raul Ojeda - Travel Staff


Raul has lived in small towns like Lago Verde up in the Andes, in isolated islands like Maillen (two hour by boat from Puerto Montt) and big cities like Santiago or Chicago.

He is a bilingual (English and Spanish) elementary school teacher who enjoys travelling and meeting with people from all over the world. Raul worked in the United States for six years with different immigrants aid organizations and at the same time he was involved in some volunteer programs in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

He and his wife Vicky have been living in Puerto Montt since they got back from the States. They have two kids: Sim€n and Mariel.





Natalia Padilla - Intern, The Chile Information Project
Natalia Padilla is a student from the University of California, Berkeley majoring in Mass Communications and Spanish and finishing her last semester of college at Pontificia Universidad de Chile. She is interning at the Santiago Times, working on newspaper sales and writing.

Originally from Los Angeles, Natalia decided to travel to South America to perfect her Spanish, drink lots of wine and study Chilean literature. Natalia is often mistaken for Chilean since she currently sports the popular Chilean mullet. When not in class or interning, she can be found wandering around the city, and is in constant search of corn tortillas. Let her know if you find any.








Nura Sadeghpour - Writer, The Santiago Times



Born in Nicaragua to a North American mother and Persian father, Nura looks forward to forging connections with Latin America for her future life and career goals. A 2003 UC Berkeley graduate, Nura spent a year in southern Chile volunteering at the Baha'i Institute and Radio Station in Labranza, then made her way back to the States to work as an editor. Now back in Chile for several months, she enjoys striking up conversations with people in coffee shops, discussing anything from education, religion, what makes Chileans tick, to the beauty of the Andes outside the window. And she doesn't even drink coffee.






Charlie Sanchez - Writer, The Santiago Times



Charlie is from England and studies English and Spanish at the University of Exeter. He arrived late September and will be staying at The Santiago Times for seven months on his year abroad.

Charlie is hoping to smash Matthew Silverman's record of the longest time spent in the shack at the back of the office, but his current run is under threat from new interns.

Aside from writing for the paper, Charlie is keen to get out and experience Santiago and to practice his Spanish. His interests include Music, Food, Sports and he has been known to dabble in Computing.








Caitlin Sandercock - Writer, The Santiago Times
Hailing from the far off shores of Sydney, Australia, Caitlin enjoys frequently uprooting herself and discovering new places. Currently living in Santiago de Chile under the auspices of being a hard-working, serious exchange student (for the third time), Caitlin found that an internship at the Santiago Times might be just the ticket to unwinding after her grinding class schedule of 6 hours a week.

An undergraduate majoring in Communications and International Studies at the University of Technology Sydney, Caitlin has also lived and traveled extensively in Europe and Mexico, but has yet to reach her goal of seeing every continent. She previously edited her university's newspaper and wrote for an online travel magazine.

Outside aspiring to be fluent in Spanish and a half-decent journalist, her interests include traveling, music, social justice, street art, finding drinkable coffee and confounding many, many a North American with her Australian accent.








Cate Setterfield - Writer, The Santiago Times
Cate studies Spanish and Russian at the University of Cambridge. Entirely by accident, Cate happened to choose a university course that would oblige her to part from beloved England with its rain, mud and never-ending university exams for a whole year. She is currently making the best of a bad situation by soaking up the sun and forcing down copious amounts of Chilean wine.

Cate is living in the shack at the back of the office, but hopes to move in with a Chilean family before she freezes to death. While in Santiago, she hopes to become fluent in Spanish, and complete her third-year dissertation on contemporary Chilean women's poetry. Other interests include rollerblading, rugby, and ice cream.








Mathew D. Silverman - Writer, The Chile Information Project
After traveling through 6 countries down here, Matt decided it was time to learn Spanish and end his two-month-long silence in Latin America. He has found a family to live with in Santiago's Barrio Providencia and looks forward to finally understanding what locals are saying to him.

Born in Philadelphia, he received a B.A. from The University of Vermont, majoring in both Economics and Political Science while editing the student newspaper -The Vermont Cynic.

Before returning to the states, Matt hopes to complete his South American passport stamp collection, surf the coast of Arica, swim in glacial waters and sample all the best wines the Southern Cone has to offer.








Ashley Steinberg - Writer, The Santiago Times
Ashley was confident that her Spanish teachers at her South Florida high school had prepared her well, but when she found herself unable to communicate beyond the words "hola" and "gracias" during her various travels, she decided to move to South America to learn the language properly. She recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where she majored in Political Science and in Communications and minored in History.

Born in Winnipeg, Canada, Ashley moved to the state of palm trees and senior citizens and has also lived in England and New York City. She has always been passionate about travel: highlights include studying in Israel, researching in India, debating in Peru and Singapore, zigzagging across Europe, and almost being sold for an unspecified number of camels in Morocco. She is interested in astronomy, music, ice skating, and photography, and is extremely excited to visit the penguins in the south of Chile.






Renata Stepanov - Writer, The Santiago Times/CHIP Travel



When she could no longer find inspiration at the Jersey shore or her charming, but modest hometown of Highland Park, NJ, Renata took her passion for writing, travel and new languages to Chile. She follows the labor, immigration and environment beats working for the Santiago Times. On the side she enjoys writing cultural reviews, travel documentaries and political blogs.

While studying Politics at Princeton University Renata had the opportunity to travel and do research in France, Russia and Hungary. Thanks to her parents, who stayed in Ukraine until 1989, she can get by in Russian, but is finding Chilean Spanish very hard to pick up÷ Hopefully before she relocates to Queens, New York in January of 2007 Renata will be able to write her own guide to surviving the Chilean jungle÷






Bill Stott - Writer & Editor, The Santiago Times
Bill Stott was a Foreign Service Officer in French-speaking Africa in the 1960's and thereafter dwindled into a college teacher. Now retired, he lives in Santiago with his wife, who teaches the subjects he used to teach, American Studies and English. He wrote several books he'd be delighted to tell you about.








Morten Szygenda - Writer, The Santiago Times
The only European working at The Santiago Times, Morten is busy working three languages at the same time. Reading in Spanish, writing in English and still thinking in Danish.

After interning for a year at a Danish daily, he is now in Santiago for half a year for credit towards his masters at the Danish School of Journalism.

Morten took the obligatory turn in the ice shack in the back of the office. He finally left the shack and is now living in Santiago Centro in the apartment of a Chilean woman, practicing his Spanish. Normally busy kite-surfing, free diving or running, he finds it difficult to do any of the three in smoggy Santiago.






Liz Yates - Writer, The Santiago Times
A proud native of Seattle, WA, Liz is a junior at Tufts University majoring in International Relations. So in order to really internationalize her study, Liz ventured beyond US borders for the first time in January of 2006, and the six months since, traveled to four new continents, most recently landing in South America as an exchange student at the University of Chile.

After years of writing and editing for student newspapers in high school and college, Liz feels right at home in The Santiago Times newsroom. Liz's goals for the semester include speaking enough Spanish to eavesdrop on the metro and to convince at least one native Chilean that, despite outward appearances, she is an authentic Chilena.






The Chiron Group - Web Business Development


While often consumed in his role as CEO and President of the Chiron Group, a web services firm in "nearby" Denver... or as GVP of Internet Business at a financial consultancy firm... CHIP's darkest angel has been consulting and generally watching over company Internet happenings since the turn of the millennium. Now formalized as a principal strategist for web-based growth, our resident vampire spends most of his life in front of glowing monitors. He's not really blond - that's just radiation.

In the fleeting periods of time not spent baby-sitting the "net" in general and optimizing the CHIP web presence in particular, he takes every opportunity to whisk his sons Ares and Thor skywards to the dismay of his proudly Chilean wife, Pame.







Miguel Fredes - Legal Representative


Attorney Miguel Fredes has focused much of his professional energy working to assure that environmental decision-making, both nationally and internationally, is done in an open and transparent way. He has nine years of professional experience in the field of freedom and access to information, public interest litigation, and environmental law and policy research. And he speaks good English.

When not giving The Santiago Times his legal advice, he works as staff attorney at the Intellectual Property Chilean Law Firm Anselmo Aguayo Abogados and also serves as International Affairs Director of the Patagonian Center of Environmental Law (CEPDA), a public interest environmental law organization based in Valdivia. He is member of E-LAW, a network of lawyers and scientists working to protect the environment world-wide.

He has helped co-found three public interest environmental law firms in Chile: Fiscalia del Medio Ambiente (FIMA) in 1998, Centro Austral de Derecho Ambiental (CEADA) in 2000 and CEPDA in 2005. He served as CEADA President during 2000-2003 and has authored several articles on environmental management, access rights, biodiversity and environmental law. Miguel lives in Santiago and loves to play piano, practice Yoga and do rock climbing.

Tel: (56) 2.233.0985 Ò Mobile: 09.067.3512






Mauricio Eyzaguirre - The Santiago Times


Mauricio is 25 years old and has been studying for two years at the Inceni Institute. MauricioÌs real passion, however, is music: heÌs been in a band for the past eight years and has released two records - "Princess Aura" with Alta Densidad and "They Who Believe" with his current band, Afterlife. He is now working on his third album.

Mauricio has had the opportunity to share the stage with foreign bands (mainly European) at Santiago shows. He began his internship at The Santiago Times in November 2004, and has been a full-time employee since March 2005.





Ray Anderson - The Santiago Times


Ray, age 8, is the youngest member of the Santiago Times staff. A bilingual wonder, he provides a certain youthful zest to whatever assignment he takes on.

In addition to extolling the virtues of the children's news hour "31 Minutes," (he knows all the songs by heart), he is a sports fanatic - both an aspiring fisherman and an innate soccer player.





CHIPSY the Cat - The Chile Information Project


CHIPSY the cat does very little, as cats are wont to do. It is however, a mascot, pushing our staff to work ever harder - the antithesis of lazy catlike behavior. At least CHIPsy held still for photos.





CHIP ALUMNI - Browse the Profiles of Past CHIP Interns and Staff.


CHIP staffers would like to thank all of our interns and employees who have made substantial contributions over the years! Please take the opportunity (click above on CHIP ALUMNI) to view former CHIP interns, helpers and friends. Many of these bright young people are back at large, so look out world, here they come!