Raquel Medina received her PhD from the University of Souther California in 1994. After working as Assistant Professor (1994-2000) and then Associate Professor of Spanish (2000-2006) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Raquel Medina joined Aston University as Head of Spanish in 2006. She is the author of the books Cinematic Representations of Alzheimer's Disease (2018, Palgrave Macmilillan),  Surrealismo en la poesía española de posguerra (Visor, 1997) and co-editor of Sexualidad y escritura (Anthropos, 2002).  She has published on contemporary Spanish poetry, women writers and cultural studies. Her current research focuses on the representation of Alzheimer’s disease in Spanish film, fiction and non-fiction narrative, and poetry, and emphasizes how cultural texts have the power of creating, sustaining, and changing meanings of AD.