I’m a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Brown University and a Research Associate at the Civil Conflict and Democratic Erosion Lab at the Watson School for International and Public Affairs. My primary field is Comparative Politics, with a regional focus on Latin America—particularly Brazil, where I am originally from. My research centers on land politics and its political, welfare, and environmental consequences for rural communities and beyond. 

In my dissertation, I investigate how land titling policies can be leveraged by political elites to displace and demobilize marginalized communities in agricultural frontier regions. I develop a new framework to understand the conditions under which this occurs and examine the broader implications for grassroots rural organization, access to state services, and environmental governance. My empirical focus is on land reform settlements in the Brazilian Amazon. I employ a mixed-methods approach that combines quasi-experimental designs, in-depth interviews, and an original large-scale survey that I led across 195 rural communities in the state of Pará. 

The survey collected unique data not only on the political structure and organizational dynamics of rural communities—which serve as a central empirical component of my dissertation—but also on episodes of land and environmental conflict, providing the foundation for a collaborative research project examining the roots and consequences of violence against environmental defenders and social activists in the Brazilian Amazon.

While I am deeply committed to empirical research, I am equally passionate about teaching. At Brown, I served as a Teaching Assistant for four semesters and earned a Teaching Seminar Certificate from the Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning. 

Before beginning my doctoral studies, I worked as a political journalist for local news outlets and as a communications manager in Brazil. I hold a BA in Journalism and Political Science from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), Brazil, and a MA in Political Science from Brown University.