“Caminante, no hay puentes, se hace puentes al andar.”
–– Gloria Anzaldúa
[Traveler, there are no bridges; one builds them as one walks.]
Our Story
At Worlds Matter, we connect cultures and through research and education, fostering understanding across borders and organizations. Drawing on more than 70 years of experience in Higher Education, our mission is to understand, manage and optimize the range of human experience so as to make the modern workplace as inclusive, meaningful and productive as possible.
“Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation.” –– Mahtama Ghandi
Our Roots
Founded by passionate cultural scholars, Worlds Matter began as a small project to connect global communities and organizations through shared stories and aspirations. Our goal is to understand, manage, and optimize the range of human experiences and talents in today’s workplace. Embracing diversity as a resource rather than a challenge enables all stakeholders to thrive and do their best work.
Our Mission
Empowering understanding across cultures through research and training.
Meet the Team:
Tom and Elizabeth
Thomas Jesús Garza, EdD, is Associate Professor Emeritus of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at UT Austin and Adjunct Instructor of English at Huston-Tillotson University. He teaches courses on Russian language and culture, world literatures, and popular cultures. Between 1979 and 2020, he travelled frequently to Russia and lived in Moscow for over five years. A native Texan, he holds degrees from Haverford College, Harvard University, and Moscow’s Pushkin Institute. During his 36-year tenure at UT Austin, he received numerous prizes for undergraduate and graduate teaching and professional service locally and nationally. He has published articles in Modern Language Journal, Foreign Language Annuals, Slavic and East European Journal, Russian Language Journal, and Current History. He recently completed a book manuscript on filmic portraits of machismo in contemporary Russian and Mexican cultures, and his volume Diversity and Decolonization in Russian Studies, co-edited with Rachel Stauffer, was released in 2025 on Palgrave Springer. His current research is on Russian singer-songwriter and actor Valdimir Vysotosky’s visits to Mexico in the 1970s.
Elizabeth Richmond-Garza, PhD, has been UT Regents’ and Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor of English at UT Austin. She served as the Director of UT’s Program in Comparative Literature from 2001-22 and as chief administrative officer of the American Comparative Literature Association from 2002-2011. She has been affiliated faculty in the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and the Program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations. She holds degrees from UC Berkeley, Oxford University and Columbia University and was awarded both Mellon and Fulbright Fellowships. She writes on Oscar Wilde, imperialism, the gothic, detective stories, and literary theory. She designs custom trainings on strategic thinking, team building, courageous conversations, and belongingness across organizational profiles, generations and life experiences using real world scenarios and popular culture. She works actively in eight world languages. Richmond-Garza’s multimedia approach to teaching has been honored by a dozen teaching awards across Texas.
Our Services
