Daniel Abreu de Azevedo

December 2013 - December 2014
Daniel Azevedo is a professor at the Universidade Estatual do Rio de Janeiro and a PhD candidate at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, where he specializes in Human and Political Geography. While at CLALS, he conducted comparative research on the relationship between space and democracy in communities within the U.S., Brazil and Mexico.

John Ackerman

August 2012 - July 2013
John Ackerman is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Legal Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (IIJ-UNAM) and Vice President of the International Association of Administrative Law. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz and his B.A. in Philosophy from Swarthmore College. He is an expert in the topics of democratic transition, accountability, election law, state reform, public policy and citizen participation. Ackerman is Editor-in-Chief of the Mexican Law Review and a bi-weekly columnist for the newsweekly Proceso and the daily La Jornada.

Ackerman has been a Senior Consultant for the World Bank and was coordinator of the National Working Group on Transparency, Oversight and Accountability of the National Fiscal Convention in Mexico. He has also been a consultant with USAID, OECD, UNDP, Global Integrity, International Budget Project, Open Society Institute and in Mexico with the Secretary of the Public Function, the Supreme Court, the Chamber of Deputies and the Government of Mexico City. He has received funding for his research from the Fulbright Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the University of California Institute on Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS).

Rodrigo Amaya Piñeros

July 2017 - January 2018
Rodrigo Amaya Piñeros is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), where his dissertation focused on the decision-making process of Colombia's foreign policy. He also holds a Master's degree in Political Science from the same institution, and a Master's degree in Analysis of Contemporary Political, Economic, and International Problems from the Institute of Development Studies (Colombia). Rodrigo is a career diplomat with 12 years of experience at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Colombia), and has been a Professor of International Relations at Universidad Externado de Colombia. His research interests include theories of international relations, foreign policy analysis, decision-making processes, and Colombian foreign policy. His most recent publication is a book chapter entitled "The Features of Colombia's Foreign Policy: Revisiting What We Know of the Country's External Conduct" in New Approaches to the Study of Colombia's International Relations (Universidad de Los Andes, 2017).

Ludovic Arnaud

March 2023 - May 2023
Ludovic Arnaud finalized his PhD at the University of Oxford Department of International Development, where he focused on the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) based on over 100 interviews with negotiators, politicians, business and labor representatives in the US, Mexico, and Canada. He has worked as a consultant for several United Nations agencies including CEPAL, UNCTAD, and UNITAR. 

Santiago Anria

June 2014 - August 2014
Santiago Anria received his PhD in political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research specialization is comparative politics, with a focus on social movements and political parties and a regional specialization in Latin America. As a CLALS Research Fellow, he worked on his dissertation, which explores the organization and behavior in power of movement-based political parties in Bolivia, Brazil, and Uruguay.

Leslie Armijo

January 2012 - September 2014
Leslie Elliott Armijo (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) studies the intersection of democratic politics and capitalist markets, as revealed by the economic policy decisions of large emerging powers, especially the "Latin American 7" of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Armijo has a longstanding interest in promoting the participation of a wider range of countries in global economic governance (see Financial Globalization and Democracy in Emerging Markets, 1999 and Debating the Global Financial Architecture, 2002), and argues that democratic consolidation in developing countries helps mitigate the incidence and costs of economic crisis (see "Two Dimensions of Democracy and the Economy," with C. Gervasoni, 2010). While at CLALS, she worked (with Sybil Rhodes) on the project "Contending Visions of the Americas: Regional Public Policies of the United States, Venezuela, and Brazil," which explores cooperation and competition in the international policy arenas of energy, finance, immigration, and defense. Armijo holds a Visiting Scholar appointment at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University. Her website is: http://www.leslieelliottarmijo.org/

Victor Armony

September 2011 - December 2011
Victor Armony is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the Observatory of the Americas at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM). During 2011-2012, he holds a Canada-US Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at American University and at the University of Texas at Austin. He was the Editor in Chief of the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies between 2004 and 2011 and he is a regular commentator on Radio Canada International's Latin American Section. He has published and lectured extensively in the field of identity, citizenship, and political discourse. His latest book is Le Québec expliqué aux immigrants (VLB Éditeur, 2007). Most recently, he contributed chapters to New Perspectives on Democracy in Latin America: Actors, Institutions and Practices (Blackwell, 2009), The New ISA Handbook of Contemporary Sociology: Conflict, Competition, Cooperation (Sage, 2009), and Identity Politics in the Public Realm: Bringing Institutions Back (University of British Columbia Press, 2011). Before coming to the Center, Dr. Armony received a three-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to study the Latino population in Canada.

Fulton Armstrong

December 2012 - Present
Fulton T. Armstrong directs the Center's blog, AULABLOG; contributes to the Cuba Initiative; and collaborates on in-depth examinations of security programs in Central America. He is currently collaborating with CLALS Fellows and staff to provide technical and capacity-building support to researchers at Universidad del Oriente (UNIVO). Before joining the Center, he followed Latin American affairs for almost 30 years in a number of U.S. government positions. He served as a senior professional staff member responsible for Latin America on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from July 2008 to October 2011, where he also worked closely with the committee's investigations team. Prior to that, he served in the Executive Branch in a series of policy and analytical positions. Among other senior positions, he was National Intelligence Officer for Latin America - the U.S. Intelligence Community's most senior analyst - in 2000-2004, and for six months he was the chief of staff of the DCI Crime and Narcotics Center. He served two terms as the Director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council (1995-97 and 1998-99), between which he was Deputy NIO for Latin America. From 1980-84 he worked for U.S. Representative Jim Leach (R-Iowa). He has spent 12 years studying and working in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He speaks Spanish and Chinese.

Email: fultona@american.edu

Aaron Bell

March 2019 - December 2022
Prof. Bell received his PhD in History from American University and a BA in History from Syracuse University. His dissertation considered how transnational processes shaped domestic dynamics in El Salvador and the United States in the opening years of El Salvador’s civil war. His research interests include U.S.-Latin American relations, immigration, and transnational conservative politics. Aaron has taught History and American Studies at American University and Trinity Washington University, and he is currently a Lecturer in the Advanced Academic Program at Johns Hopkins University. Prof. Bell carried out fieldwork in North and South Carolina as part of the Center’s yearlong study on the impacts of Central American migration on U.S communities. He also managed the Center's work providing expert assistance to law firms and non-profit legal service providers representing Central American children and families seeking asylum in the United States.

Email: aaron.bell@american.edu

Patrick Breslin

March 2014 - December 2014
Photographer and writer Patrick Breslin grew up in the immigrant communities of New York City's South Bronx. After college, he worked as a newspaper reporter, then as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia before earning Master's and PhD degrees in political science from NYU and UCLA. Concurrently, he worked as a Peace Corps trainer, a journalist, and a research director at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He studied photography at the Corcoran Gallery and the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.

Breslin has published two books, Interventions, a novel set in the turbulent period of the 1973 military coup against President Allende in Chile, and Development and Dignity, on the Inter-American Foundation, a semi-independent U.S. government agency. In 1987, Breslin joined the IAF staff, where he directed research, wrote numerous articles, handled country portfolios in Honduras and Colombia, and was principal staff photographer for the IAF Journal. From 2000-2007, as vice president for external affairs, he oversaw publications and represented the Foundation before Congress. Breslin's articles and book reviews have appeared in major U.S. magazines such as Smithsonian and several newspapers, principally the Washington Post. His photography documenting aspects of the struggle for a better life by poor people in Latin America still plays a prominent role in IAF publications.

As a CLALS Research Fellow, Breslin worked on a study of the impact of grassroots development projects on the empowerment of local grantee organizations in Latin America.

Esteban Caballero Carrizosa

February 2020 - May 2021
Esteban Caballero Carrizosa is presently working as an independent policy advisor, specializing in Latin America. He was CEO and founder of the Center for Democratic Studies in Paraguay, an NGO dedicated to the advancement of democracy in the years of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, and participated actively in the quest to install a system of free and fair elections during the years of transition to democracy. During that time, he was elected to the National Constituent Assembly and contributed to the drafting of the first democratic constitution of Paraguay in 1992. Later, he joined the United Nations and worked in UNICEF and UNFPA for 24 years, ending his career as the UN Fund for Population's regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, advocating for sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender equality and the utilization socio-demographic data, supervising national programs and offices in more than 22 countries in the region. 

Esteban is currently setting up an analytical platform called "Ciclo Político" with the objective of observing, analyzing, and developing a progressive and transformative political discourse that can address some of the policy challenges faced by those interested in social justice, diversity, and sustainable development. His research at CLALS will consist of a critical analysis of political discourse during what is known as the “Supercycle” of elections in Latin America (2017 - 2019), with a special emphasis on South American political actors. 

Juan Camacho

August 2014 - December 2015 
Juan Luis Camacho Cueva was born in Peru and is currently a PhD student at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institut of the University of Freiburg, Germany. The aim of his research - entitled "Extractive policies and the bargaining power of indigenous peoples in terms of access to natural resources in the Peruvian Amazonia" - is to shed light on the group of actors, and their respective powers, surrounding the Camisea natural gas project in Peru, as a representative case study of other extractive cases. His research highlights the power strategies used by actors with different bargaining capacities in order to shape the decision-making processes that ultimately determine who gains access to natural resources in the Peruvian Amazonia. He also assesses the degree and extent to which the indigenous peoples of this region can negotiate for their own interests and future within this specific group of actors.

Julian Camilo Silva

February 2018 - August 2018
Julian Camilo Silva is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Universidad de los Andes (Colombia). His dissertation focuses on the earlier attempts to professionalize the Colombian Foreign Service, from 1920 to 1930. He holds a Master's degree in History from the same institution, and an Executive Master's degree in International Negotiation and Policy Making from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Switzerland). Julian has served for the last 12 years as a career diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia and has been a Professor of International Relations at Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Universidad de los Andes, and Universidad Javeriana (Colombia). His research interests include history of the State, history of diplomacy, history of bureaucracy and history of the institutions, as well as history of the Colombian and Latin American Foreign Policy.

Email: jc.silvas@uniandes.edu.co

Cristina Carvalho Pacheco

September 2013 - July 2014
Cristina Pacheco (PhD, UNICAMP, Brazil) is an Associate Professor at the State University of Paraiba, Brazil, located in the warm and beautiful city of João Pessoa, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in international relations. Pacheco is a specialist in U.S. foreign relations, judicial politics, and international organizations. She is also a Researcher at INCT-INEU, a leading Brazilian institution dedicated to the study of the United States. She co-edits Revista de Estudos Internacionais (REI) , a Brazilian academic journal on international relations.

As a Fulbright Fellow at CLALS, Pacheco worked on a monograph on the U.S. Supreme Court's role in shaping foreign policy. The project focuses not only on landmark decisions on U.S. foreign policy made by the Court (Curtiss Wrigth Co., 1936; Korematsu, 1941; Youngstown Sheet and Tube, 1952; Goldwater, 1979; Rasul, 2004; Hamdi, 2006; and Boumediene, 2008, but also on less familiar cases that have also impacted U.S. foreign policy over the years. The main goal is to look at the Court as an important player in this field, while analyzing the ways in which the judicial system's influence on foreign policy are distinct from those of other branches of government.

Paulo Castro

September 2017 - May 2018
Paulo Alexandre B. de Castro is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at the University of Brasilia (Brazil), where his dissertation focuses on the political action of the Brazilian Supremo Tribunal Federal. He also holds a Masters degree in Latin American Politics from the same institution. Paulo is an adjunct professor at the Brasilia Institute for Public Law and an independent consultant in Brazilian politics. He has served as General Coordinator of Cooperation and Education at the Ministry of Justice and as an adviser to the National Secretary for Consumer Protection. In the private sector, Paulo was a senior analyst at Instituto Brasileiro de Estudos Politicos (IBEP) and co-founder of C.A.C. Consultoria, a political risk consultancy in Brasilia. He has consulted for the United Nations and for the Brazilian Presidency.

Email: paulo.castro@yahoo.com

Nicolás Comini

March 2017 - July 2017
Nicolás Comini is Director of the Bachelor and Master Programs in International Relations (Universidad del Salvador, Argentina) and Professor at the New York University-Buenos Aires. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, a M.A. in Latin American Integration (Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero), and a B.A. in International Relations from Universidad del Salvador. His research interests include U.S.-Latin American relations, regional integration, and the international security. Professor Comini's publications include suRamericanizados: la integración regional desde la Alianza al kirchnerismo (2016); Políticas Públicas regionales. Un abordaje sectorial de la Integración Latinoamericana (2016); and De cadencias y disonancias, representaciones alternativas de la integración regional en el siglo XXI: América Latina, Asia y Europa del Este (2014). He has received grants from the United States Department of State and Fulbright Commission, the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD), the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and the Università degli Studi di Torino.

Catherine M. Conaghan

September 2014 - December 2014
Catherine M. Conaghan is the Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Latin American Politics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. She received her PhD from Yale and has written extensively on Andean politics. Her books include Fujimori's Peru: Deception in the Public Sphere (2005), Unsettling Statecraft: Democracy and Neoliberalism in the Central Andes (with James Malloy, 1994), and Restructuring Domination: Industrialists and the State in Ecuador (1988). She held the Knapp Chair at the University of San Diego and has been a visiting fellow at Princeton, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Kellogg Institute. Her journal contributions include publications in the Journal of Latin American Studies, The International Journal of Press/Politics, and the Journal of Democracy. While at CLALS, her research focused on the "new normativity" aimed societal regulation in Ecuador and its impact on the state and political development. Her analysis includes policies regulating the mass media, civil society organizations and higher education.

Flávio Contrera

August 2015 - February 2016
Flávio Contrera is a Political Science PhD candidate at the Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar). He received his MA in Political Science from UFSCar in 2013 and his BA in Social Sciences from the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) in 2010. While at CLALS, his research was sponsored by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo. His topics of interest include political parties, legislative behavior, foreign policy, and US-Latin America relations.

 

Marcio Cunha Filho

September 2016 - June 2017
Marcio Cunha Filho holds a Bachelor degree in Law and a Masters degree in Political Science, both from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (UFRGS). He is currently a PhD candidate at the Law School of the University of Brasília. As a Federal Auditor at the Office of the Comptroller General, he has participated in the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act in Brazil. Marcio is also a former lecturer at Centro Universitario de Brasília (Uniceub).

Michael Danielson

August 2012 - August 2023
Michael S. Danielson is Visiting Faculty at the University of California Washington Program (UCDC). He collaborated with CLALS Fellows and staff to provide technical and capacity-building support to researchers at Universidad del Oriente (UNIVO). Since receiving his Ph.D. in political science from American University, he has taught Latin American politics and international affairs at George Washington University and the NYU and Pepperdine University programs in Washington, DC. His book, Emigrants Get Political: Mexican Migrants Engage Their Home Towns (2018), was published by Oxford University Press. His research has been published in numerous peer reviewed and policy-oriented venues and he received Fulbright, National Science Foundation, and Gill Family Foundation grants to fund his dissertation survey and field research. He also holds an MA in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies (now the Middlebury Institute of International Studies) and Spanish and Philosophy degrees from Santa Clara University. As a practitioner, he has consulted for the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States and the Kino Border Initiative and previously served as a policy analyst for the Children's Defense Fund and the Center on Policy Initiatives.

John Dinges

January 2013 - December 2014
Reporter, author and correspondent for many years in Latin America, John Dinges is the author of three books on Latin America, the most recent of which is The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents, (The New Press, 2004/2005; also published in Spanish as Operación Cóndor: Una Década de Terrorismo Internacional en el Cono Sur by Ediciones B, 2004). Dinges is a professor of journalism at Columbia University. He is co-founder of the Centro de Investigación e Información Periodística (CIPER) in Santiago, Chile, which began operation in May 2007, and executive director of the non-profit Center for Investigation and Information (CIINFO).

During his time as a CLALS Research Fellow, Dinges worked on a two-year research project, "Media and Democracy in Latin America: Beyond Freedom of Expression," which focused on press freedom in so-called "illiberal democracies": Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Breaking free of the traditional lens in most studies, the study looked at press freedom as an end in itself. It looked at the actions and standards of the press as well as of the governments, exploring how both sides are either furthering or damaging democracy.

Sol Espinoza

November 2020 - January 2023
Sol Espinoza completed a Ph.D. in Sociology from Johns Hopkins University. She received a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Social Welfare from the University of California at Berkeley and a joint master’s degree in Public Affairs and Urban Regional Planning from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. She has lectured at the University of Maryland and served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Catholic University of America. She served as a Senior Researcher at the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress, where she conducted research on economic inequality, the labor market, work-family policy, gun violence, and the 2020 Census.

Sol has more than 20 years of professional experience in the public and nonprofit sectors, including work in local government, at the U.S. Census Bureau, and at the Pew Research Center. Her research fields of interest include ethnicity and immigration, labor and employment, entrepreneurship, social inequality (gender-race-class), family and marriage, geographic disparities, and the intersection of the economy, society, and public policy.

Breno Ferreira Martins Vasconcelos

January 2023 - Present
Breno Ferreira Martins Vasconcelos is a researcher and professor of Tax Law in the graduate department of Insper Learning Institution, a private university, and also conducts research at Fundação Getulio Vargas in São Paulo, Brazil. He received a Bachelor's degree in Law and a Master's degree in Tax Law from Universitá degli Studi di Bologna in Italy. Breno is a Doctoral candidate in Law and Development at Escola di Direito de São Paulo da Fundação Getulio Vargas.

Email: breno@mannrichvasconcelos.com.br

Patricia Foxen 

November 2018 - November 2019
Dr. Patricia Foxen is the Deputy Director of Research at UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza). She oversees UnidosUS’ policy-oriented research and focuses on developing new research on Latino children and youth, race/ethnicity, discrimination, socioemotional health, and wellbeing. She is a cultural anthropologist who has worked extensively with Latino immigrant and refugee communities in the U.S. and Canada, as well as in Latin America. At UnidosUS, she has authored numerous reports including Mental Health Services for Latino Youth: Bridging Culture and Evidence (2016), Resilient Latino Youth: In Their Own Words (2015) and Speaking Out: Latino Youth on Discrimination in the United States (2010).

Dr. Foxen’s anthropological research focuses on the intersection of migration, culture and mental health, particularly among indigenous Central American migrants; she is the author of the book In Search of Providence: Transnational Mayan Identities (Vanderbilt University Press, 2008), and has published articles in the Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, the Journal of Refugee Studies, and Transcultural Psychiatry, among other publications. She has taught at Vanderbilt University and the University of Toronto and has been a visiting fellow at Yale University and American University. She has served on various boards and advisory bodies including the Child Trends Hispanic Institute Advisory Council, the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, and the Alianza for Latino Youth Justice. She holds a doctoral degree in anthropology and a master’s degree in medical anthropology from McGill University in Montreal, a master of public health degree from Colombia University, and a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Bryn Mawr College.

Email: pfoxen@american.edu

Benjamin Francis-Fallon

October 2012 - May 2013
Benjamin Francis-Fallon (PhD, Georgetown University) is a historian and teacher whose interests center on the politics of immigration and ethnicity in the United States of America. His doctoral dissertation explores the origins and development of the "Hispanic Vote." It examines how leaders from grassroots activists to US presidents approached the task of convincing Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other Latino populations to act as one, and shows that political organizing was crucial in defining and institutionalizing Latino identity in the United States in the decades after World War II. It demonstrates how pan-Hispanic politics altered both Democratic and Republican strategies, transformed public policy, made "Hispanic" an official category of American citizen, and helped redefine the United States as a multicultural nation.

Dr. Francis-Fallon teaches courses on US immigration and ethnic history, Latino history, and US political history at Georgetown University. Previously, he taught social studies and Spanish language to the charming and hopeful students of Canarsie High School in Brooklyn, New York.

Nilda Garay Montañez

September 2013 - December 2013
Nilda Garay Montañez is a Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Alicante, Spain, where she obtained her PhD. Her dissertation analyzed the status of indigenous peoples in Peruvian constitutionalism. She has been a visiting researcher and faculty member at the University of Bologna and the University of Lima, lecturing in equal rights and gender issues; and an invited professor of comparative constitutional law in the PhD program of the Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú. She is a co-founder and member of the Red Feminista de Derecho Constitucional of Spain, and a member of the Asociación Peruana de Derecho Constitucional. She received a BA in law from the University of Lima, Peru, and has practiced as a specialist in alien and immigration law.

Her principal themes of investigation include gender studies, anti-discrimination law, and alien law, all from a comparative constitutional perspective, mainly between the Spanish and Latin American law systems. She has published articles in Crítica Jurídica, Feminismo/s, Cathedra (Revista de la Facultad de Derecho de los estudiantes de derecho de la Universidad Mayor de San Marcos), Pensamiento Constitucional, and Cuadernos Constitucionales de la Cátedra Furió Ceriol. As a fellow with CLALS, Garay Montañez conducted a comparative study of discrimination towards Latinos in Spain and in the United States, from the perspective of constitutional law.

Yazmín A. García Trejo

June 2013 - June 2015
Yazmín A. García Trejo received her PhD from the University of Connecticut's Department of Political Science and finished her thesis while at CLALS. Her areas of specialization are in comparative politics and American politics. García Trejo's dissertation examines the gender gap in political knowledge: why surveys find that women know less about politics when compared to men. In particular, she focuses on the origins of the gender gap in political knowledge and its implications for women's political participation and representation in Mexico. García Trejo employed a research strategy by developing a gendered theoretical framework to the study of the acquisition of political information. For her dissertation she conducted fieldwork (surveys of high school students in two Mexican states) and an analysis of 20+ years of public opinion data.

García Trejo was an American Dissertation Fellow (2013-2014) from the American Association of University Women and was a visiting scholar (2011) at El Colegio de Sonora (Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico). She worked at the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research where she collaborated in the supervision of the Latin American Databank. García Trejo has taught at the University of Connecticut's El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, Latin American Studies and within the Department of Political Science. She received her BA in economics from the Instituto Politécnico Nacional. After graduating, she worked at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE). She then continued her graduate studies, earning Master's degrees in Survey Research and Latin American Studies from the University of Connecticut.

Dennis Gilbert

August 2010 - April 2011
Dennis Gilbert is a Professor of Sociology at Hamilton College, and spent the Spring semester of 2011 as a Visiting Fellow with the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. His primary research interests are Latin American society and history and the American class system. Gilbert is the author of The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality (Sage, 2011), Mexico's Middle Class in the Neoliberal Era (University of Arizona Press, 2007), Sandinistas: the Party and the Revolution (Blackwell, 1988), and La Oligarquía Peruana: Historia de Tres familias (Horizonte, 1982). In 1990, he was research director to the successful congressional campaign of Bernard Sanders (Independent-VT) and later served as legislative assistant in Sanders' congressional office. In collaboration with the polling firm Zogby International, Gilbert and his Hamilton students have conducted a series of widely reported national surveys, most examining the views of high school students, on such topics as gun control, gay rights, abortion, Muslims in America, and patriotism. Gilbert earned his PhD in 1976 in sociology from Cornell University.

Ieva Giedraitytè

February - June 2023
Ieva Giedraitytè is a lecturer and researcher at Vilnius University (Lithuania) with nine years of experience in research and teaching BA and MA-level students. She holds an MA in Latin American Studies (Barcelona University, Spain, 2010) and a Ph.D. in Political Science (Vilnius University, Lithuania, 2021). Her teaching and research interests are the EU’s external policy, (narratives of) regional and global orders, and US-Latin American relations.

As a Fulbright-grant recipient, she plans to continue working on the comparative analysis of the US and EU Southern Neighborhood policies since 2014, focusing on their engagement with the Northern Triangle and Maghreb countries, respectively. To compare these strategies, Ieva uses a new typology of regional orders created by combining research on regional orders, regional powers, and sociological approaches to international relations.

Ieva also spent several years as a trainee in different EU development cooperation bodies (DG DEVCO and the EU Delegation in Honduras). She has also participated in three EU electoral observation missions (Honduras, 2017; El Salvador, 2018; and Venezuela, 2021). Moreover, she has ten years of experience in policy research and preparing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating development projects. Mainly working on democratization, participation, and inclusion of vulnerable groups, Ieva is skilled in using different research and evaluation methods. Among her clients are governmental organizations, national and international CSOs, and international organizations. 

Makram Haluani

April 2017 - September 2017
Makram Haluani N. earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Münster, Germany (1982). His teaching, research, and publications focus on regional conflicts in Europe and Latin America; political violence, system stability, and change issues; and leadership and negotiations. Makram Haluani is a (currently retired) Professor of Political Science at the Simon Bolivar University (USB) in Caracas, Venezuela. He was Director of the Institute of Higher Latin American Studies (IAEAL) from 2007-2009; Chair of the Department of Economics and Administration from 2000-2002; and Director of Graduate Studies in Political Science from 1992-1994 at the USB. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, (1994-1995) and at El Instituto: Institute of Latino/a, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies at the University of Connecticut (2011-2012). He carried out research as a DAAD-Scholar at the University of Erlangen (1996), University of Münster (2002), University of Siegen (2008), and at the Stiftung fur Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin (2011). His work at CLALS was sponsored by a Fulbright scholarship: structural and functional variables shaping U.S. strategic influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Claudia Heiss

September 2023 - Present
Claudia Heiss is Assistant Professor at Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad de Chile, where she leads the undergraduate program in political science. She earned a Ph.D. in political science from the New School for Social Research, M.A. from Columbia University, and B.A. in Journalism from Universidad de Chile. Claudia is also Adjunct Researcher at the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies and at the Millennium Nucleus for the Study of Media, Public Opinion, and Politics, as well as Former President of the Chilean Political Science Association 2012-2014, Member of its board 2021-2023, and Member of Red de Politologas and the Board of Columbia Global Center in Santiago. 

Email: claudiaheissb@gmail.com

José Henríquez

September 2019 - December 2019
José Henríquez Leiva is a doctoral candidate at the Irish Center for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway, where he also teaches modules on regional systems and mechanisms of human rights protection. His is a socio-legal scholar mainly interested in the complexities and ramifications of urban violence, particularly when it involves youth and marginalized communities. His current projects examine the violent dynamics of gangs and states in Central America, using Guatemala as a case study.

Mr. Henríquez is a sociologist and an international development practitioner. He is the former Secretary General of Pax Christi International, an international network of organizations working on peace and human rights issues. He has also been a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank and for several international NGOs. He has worked extensively with rural and marginalized communities in Central America, Peru and Bolivia. He also serves as an expert witness in asylum cases in the United States.

Mr. Henríquez is an American University alumnus with an M.Sc. in International Development from the School of International Service. He also holds a sociology degree from the Pontifical Gregorian University (Italy), a theology degree from La Salle University (Mexico), and an education degree from the Francisco Marroquín University (Guatemala).

Alba Hesselroth

December 2012 - June 2014
Alba Hesselroth holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Southern California, a Masters in Law (LLM) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a law degree from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. Her areas of specialization are international political economy and Latin America. She is assistant professor at Lewis University, Department of Political Science where she has taught since 2007. Previously she taught at Wheaton College (Illinois) and was a visiting professor at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. Courses taught include international relations, comparative government, introduction to international law, international political economy, and Latin American politics.

Brandon Hunter-Pazzara

March 2020 - June 2021
Brandon Hunter-Pazzara is a PhD Candidate in Cultural Anthropology at Princeton University. His research is a comparative ethnographic study of two labor unions operating in the Riviera Maya and headquartered in the town of Playa del Carmen, Mexico. In that context, his research focuses on the role of organized labor in regional tourism development and its relationship to larger political and economic transformations underway in Mexico.

Brandon’s project asks what role organized and formal labor arrangements can play in economic development schemes in Latin America and the meaning workers place in their unions. Brandon is interested in questions of workplace justice, criminality in economic relations, law, the future of work, and global capitalist development. His research has received support from the National Science Foundation, and he is a Fulbright-Hays recipient. Brandon holds a JD from Georgetown University Law Center and a MA and BA in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas.

As a fellow, Brandon will be completing research that examines the relationship between organized labor and organized criminal activity in Mexico’s tourism zones and the implications of an economy that increasingly relies on the entanglement of licit and illicit activity. 

Email: bhunter@american.edu

João Carlos Jarochinski Silva

December 2019 - July 2020
João is a professor at the Universidade Federal de Roraima (UFRR) where he teaches courses on international relations. He is also a post-doctoral researcher at the Núcleo de Estudos de População "Elza Berquó" (NEPO) - Unicamp. João received his PhD in the Social Sciences (International Relations) from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP) and a master’s degree in International Law from Universidade Católica de Santos (UNISANTOS). His current research focuses on Venezuelan migration and analyzes the responses of South American governments and international organizations. In particular, he has worked closely with migrant Venezuelans in Boa Vista (Roraima). João has also collaborated with Dr. Rosana Baeninger on ‘Migrações Venezuelanas,’ which explores the variety of responses and perceptions of Venezuelan migrants to Brazil.

Email: jsilva@american.edu

Marguerite Rose Jiménez

February 2017 - May 2018
Marguerite Rose Jiménez holds a Master's degree in Foreign Policy and a Ph.D. in Political Science from American University's School of Public Affairs. Since moving to Washington, DC in 2005, Marguerite has worked as a consultant for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Institute for Policy Studies and served as program coordinator for Executive Training programs for the U.S. Department of State. From 2014-2015, she served as a White House Fellow.). After serving as a White House Fellow, she spent 18 months serving as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce. Currently, she is a Senior Associate at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), in addition to teaching classes at AU and at Georgetown.

Her research focuses on policy innovation and diffusion, and comparative public policy in lower and middle-income countries with a specialty in public health policy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Additional research interests include policy implementation, diplomatic history, global health, international organizations, and vaccine diplomacy. Marguerite recently completed a second edited volume on contemporary Cuba, a monograph on vaccine diplomacy for the National Academy of Sciences, and was named an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow for 2014-2015.

E-mail: mjimenez@american.edu

Fábio Kerche

September 2016 - May 2017
Fábio Kerche is a Doctor of Political Science at the University of São Paulo and tenured researcher at Casa de Rui Barbosa Foundation in the Law Sector in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His work focuses on democracy, judicial systems, and the Brazilian Prosecutor's Office. Professor Kerche has published several articles, in addition to the edited volume Reforma Política e Cidadania (Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 2003) and Virtude e Limites: Autonomia e Atribuições do Ministério Público no Brasil (Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 2009). He was Deputy Press Secretary and Press Secretary of the Presidency of Republic among others positions in the Brazilian government.

Patricia Legarreta

June 2013 - August 2013
Patricia Legarreta received her PhD from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico. Her dissertation, Culture, Development and International Cooperation in the Papaloapan Basin: From Inter-American Indigenismo to Global Multiculturalism, focuses on the dynamics of international cooperation between Mexican and American anthropologists and national, multilateral, public and private institutions in Cold War development programs, as well as the continuities and transformations in the neoliberal era. She has a Masters degree in Social Anthropology (Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Mexico), with a specialization in public policy and the political, economic, cultural, and generational transformations that infrastructure (highways, dams, electricity, etc.) carried to the Chinantec region of Oaxaca, Mexico. She has worked as a researcher on indigenous and cultural legislation for the Centro de Estudios Sociales y de Opinión Pública of the Mexican Congress, and has been a professor of rural studies, Mexican political economy, and fieldwork methodologies at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Silvio Levcovitz

August 2015 - June 2016
Silvio Levcovitz is a PhD candidate in political science at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). He received his M.A. in political science from the Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos (UFSCar) in 2014, his B.A. in law from the Universidade de Brasilia (UnB) in 1999, and his B.S. in physics from the Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC Rio) in 1987. His research while at CLALS aimed to identify the criminal cases of corruption and civil claims of administrative misconduct judged by the Brazilian courts from 1991 to 2014, and analyzed how the Brazilian Judiciary dealt with this specific institutional mission.

Silvio has been a public lawyer in Brazil (Attorney of the National Treasury) for the past 14 years and formerly was an auditor with the Tribunal de Contas da Uniao (National Audit Office) from 1995 to 2001.

Lázaro Lima

August 2018 - May 2019
Lázaro Lima (Ph.D., Maryland) is the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair in the Liberal Arts and Professor of Latino Studies at the University of Richmond. He is the author of The Latino Body: Crisis Identities in American Literary and Cultural Memory (NYU Press, 2007), Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing, co-edited with Felice Picano (University of Wisconsin Press, 2011), Trevor Young: The Aesthetics of Displacement (Museum Arts Press, 2013), the forthcoming Losing Sonia Sotomayor: An American Life After Multiculturalism, and the executive producer and co-writer of two documentary films, Las Mujeres: Latina Lives, American Dreams (Deronda Productions, 2016), and Rubí’s Story: A DACA Dreamer in Trump’s America (Deronda Productions, 2018). Lima is the recipient of grants and awards from many institutions including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Library Association.

Vanessa Rodrigues de Macedo

August 2015 - December 2015 
Vanessa Macedo is a journalist and PhD candidate in political science at the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (IESP/Uerj). She received her MA in International Relations from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), where she conducted research on the new actors within Brazilian foreign policy. While at CLALS, she worked on a comparative study on the emergence of transparency norms in Brazil and Mexico, as well as the dissemination of Freedom of Information Laws in these countries.

Macedo is an Information Coordinator at the Brazilian National Research and Education Network (Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa- RNP), a quasi non-governmental organization that promotes Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for universities and the government. In this function, she has undertaken projects in relation to government policy towards transparency and access to open data.

She was a journalist for the O Globo newspaper in Brazil between 2000 and 2003, and her topics of interest include: democracy, accountability, transparency, freedom of information, international norms and foreign policy.

Adriano José Marangoni

March 2014 - July 2014
Adriano Marangoni is a historian with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Social History and American Culture from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP) in Brazil. His research interests include twentieth-century Brazilian-U.S. cultural and political relations. His master's thesis focused on cinema, comic books, and literature. He is the co-author of Os Americanos, part of a series of books focused on the histories and peoples of the U.S. As part of his doctoral studies, he conducted research on the United States Information Agency at the National Archives and Record Administration in Washington, DC.

Michael McCarthy

September 2014 - December 2021
Michael McCarthy was a Research Fellow at American University’s CLALS for seven years. He is Adjunct Professor at George Washington University's Elliot School for International Affairs and the Founder and CEO of Caracas Wire—a boutique consultancy covering Venezuela and geo-politics in the Americas.

He is a recognized expert in Latin American politics, U.S.-Latin American relations, democratization, populism, civil society, and issues of media balance and bias. Previously, he was Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, a Senior Analyst for the Carter Center's Venezuela Presidential Election Study Missions (2012-2013), and a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He earned his PhD and MA in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in History and Political Science from Bates College.

Twitter: @MikeCaracasWire

Email: mmccarth@american.edu

Javier Meléndez

February 2013 - February 2014
Javier Meléndez has more than 15 years of experience in governance, and is a specialist in the areas of national security and citizen security. In 2004, he founded the Institute for Strategic Studies and Public Policies (Instituto de Estudios Estratégicos y Políticas Públicas, IEEPP), an independent Nicaraguan think-tank and advocacy organization dedicated to security reform and public sector transparency in Nicaragua and Central America. As the Executive Director of IEEPP from 2004 to 2009, he led investigations on security-sector reform measures in Nicaragua and throughout Central America, managed budget transparency programs, and trained Nicaraguan legislators on budget analysis. Before taking on the executive direction of IEEPP, Mr. Meléndez served as an advisor to the Nicaraguan Defense Ministry and helped organize the citizen consultation process for the White Book of Nicaragua's Defense and National Security. He also worked as a program officer for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Washington, DC and as a coordinator for the Center for Strategic Studies in Nicaragua. Mr. Meléndez has published, coordinated, and edited more than a dozen research works on defense, public security, international affairs, organized crime, and public sector transparency. He has also advised and served as a consultant for the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress in Costa Rica, the British Department for International Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament, and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-LIREC), and the Organization of American States on citizen security, governance, political party modernization, and transparency issues. In 2009, Mr. Meléndez was part of the executive committee for Human Development Report, "Opening spaces to citizen security and human development for Central America." Since September 2010, he has served as a consultant for the Center for Naval Analysis, and collaborator with InSight Crime in Washington DC.

Christopher Moore

February 2016 - November 2017
Christopher Moore is a PhD candidate at Indiana University-Bloomington, a research fellow at the Smithsonian Institution's Human Studies Film Archives, and a documentary filmmaker with Sol Productions. As a documentarian, he has written and directed four feature-length films. His work has screened at major international film festivals such as Boston and Sarasota; at other venues including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and the Smithsonian Museum of African Art; and at over one hundred and twenty colleges and universities on four continents, where Chris has often lectured about film, politics, and the creative process. In 2008 he and his co-directors received the "Media that Matters" award from Al Gore's Current TV for their online series, Democracy in Dakar. Currently, Chris is a doctoral candidate in the history of film at Indiana University, where he is writing a dissertation on ethics and the "politics of presence" in Argentine documentary filmmaking between 1948 and 1978. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his partner, Mary.

Caroline Moser

September 2012 - August 2013
As an urban social anthropologist and social policy specialist, Caroline Moser has more than forty years of experience relating to urban development and social policy on a range of issues, including academic and policy-focused research, teaching and training. She has undertaken primary field-based research on urban poverty, urban violence, household asset vulnerability and accumulation strategies, gender and development and the informal sector in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Jamaica. Moser has taught at the London School of Economics, the New School and University College London. Prior to coming to the University of Manchester, she worked at the World Bank, the Overseas Development Institute and the Brookings Institution. She has also served as Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol, a Research Fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York and an Advisor to the Ford Foundation's Global Urban Research Initiative. Moser currently leads research projects exploring the tipping points of urban violence and asset planning.

Luis Gilberto Murillo

October 2018 - July 2022
Luis Gilberto Murillo is a policy and advocacy expert with 28 years of experience in the areas of environment, sustainable development, and peace building. In 1998-99, Murillo served as elected governor of the predominantly Afro-Colombian department of Chocó; he was also executive director and deputy director of the Chocó and Bogotá environmental protection agencies, respectively. In addition, he has been a consultant for the Environmental Research Institute for the Pacific Coast, the Colombian Ministry of Mining and Energy, and the United Nations Development Program, and has served as a peer reviewer for the World Bank. Murillo has taught environmental policy and development at top universities in Colombia.

In 2001, he began work in Washington, DC as U.S.-Colombia Policy Coordinator and later as Senior Policy Advocacy Advisor for Lutheran World Relief. Murillo works to make the voices of marginalized Colombians heard in the policy debate in Washington, and has been a catalytic force in creating links between Afro-Colombian and African American civil society, the public, and popular elected leaders. Moreover, Murillo is a well-known political advocate for U.S. aid that promotes peace with justice, both in Colombia and around the world. Murillo has been a member of the boards of directors and the advisory committees of various U.S.-based NGOs, including the Colombian Human Rights Committee, the U.S. Office on Colombia, the Afro-Latino Development Alliance, the American Friends Service Committee and the Global Exchange Speakers Bureau, among others.

Most recently, Murillo was the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development in Colombia from 2016-18. During his time at CLALS, he worked on a project on the strategic culture and political economy of environmental policy in Colombia, performing research on the implications of environmental and sustainable development policy making and implementation processes on inequality for Afro-Colombians. In 2022, Murillo was named Colombia's Ambassador to the United States.

Laura de Oliveira

October 2017 - October 2018
Laura de Oliveira is a Professor in the Department of History and Graduate Program in History at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA, Brazil). She completed postdoctoral training in the Graduate Program in Education at the University of São Paulo (USP) in 2016, and recently published the volume Guerra Fria e Politica Editorial (Cold War and Editorial Politics) (EDUEM, 2015). Laura holds a Ph.D. in History from the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), and completed a doctoral internship at Georgetown University. Her thesis won the 4th Manoel Salgado - ANPUH Thesis Award (2015), and received honorable mention in the Capes Thesis Prize (2014). She also holds a MA in History from the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), where her Master's dissertation won in the Academic Expression Award - UFG (2011). Her research interests include such topics in contemporary history as ethics and human rights; Brazil-United States relations; Cold War and cultural warfare; and diplomacy and propaganda.

Email: laura.oliveira@ufba.br

Matheus de Oliveira Pereira

September 2019 - May 2020
Matheus is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) Graduate Program in International Relations “San Tiago Dantas” (UNESP, UNICAMP, PUC-SP). He holds a master’s degree from São Paulo State University (UNESP) and a bachelor’s from the Federal University of Sergipe. Previously, he was a visiting researcher at the University of Buenos Aires and has taught at the University of Ribeirão Preto. His current research explores the intersections of political economy and foreign policy of contemporary Argentina, focusing on the sovereign debt crisis and its policy implications. Other research interests include U.S-Latin American relations and civil-military relations in Latin America. In 2017, he received an award by the Brazilian Association of International Relations for his master's thesis. He has also contributed to various publications and press interviews.

Jorge Alberto Órtiz Almanza

September 2022 - February 2023
From Mexico City, Jorge is enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Political and Social Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He teaches Mexican Foreign Policy at UNAM and Anahuac University. As a Fulbright-García Robles grant recipient in the Mexican Visiting Scholar program, he carried out doctoral research at American University to complete a dissertation on U.S. foreign policy towards China and Cuba from a comparative perspective.

Stefano Palestini

February 2017 - April 2017
Stefano Palestini is Postdoctoral Fellow the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin. He holds a Ph.D. from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy) and a Licenciatura in Sociology from the Alberto Hurtado University in Santiago de Chile. He has been consultant at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP-Chile), visiting researcher at the Institute of Social and Political Studies at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and lecturer at the Universidad de Chile and Diego Portales University both in Santiago de Chile.

At CLALS, Stefano worked on a project about the role of Latin American regional organizations in democracy promotion and protection. His latest publications include an article in Pensamiento Propio, " Defensa de la democracia o autodefensa: las organizaciones regionales y la protección de la democracia en América Latina y el Caribe" (with Carlos Closa); Regional Organizations and the Mechanisms for the Protection of Democracy in Latin America and Europe (with Carlos Closa and Pablo Castillo); " Regional Development Governance" in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism (with Laszlo Bruszt); and an article in Caderno CRH, " Energía de Baja Intensidad: gobiernos, mercados e instituciones en el regionalismo energético de América del Sur." He periodically contributes to the blog Estudios de la Economía that connects political economists and economic sociologists from the Americas and Europe.

Alejandro Perdomo

August 2014 - December 2014
Alejandro L. Perdomo Aguilera earned graduate degrees in History and Contemporary History at the University of Havana and a Masters in International Relations from the Institute of International Relations "González Raúl Roa" (ISRI). He has also completed several postgraduate courses at the Faculty of Law, Faculty of Social Communication, and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO);at the University of Havana. He has published articles and essays about security, drug trafficking, and crimes related to U.S. foreign and security policy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Perdomo specializes in US foreign and national security, as well as US-Cuban bilateral relations. He was a researcher with the Center for American Studies (CEA) from 2009 to 2010 and has worked in the Research Center for International Policy (CIPI) and been part of CIPI's U.S. Research Group. He was a member of the Cuban United Nations Association (ACNU) and the National Union of Cuban Historians (UNIC).

Lucas Damasceno Pereira

September 2022 - Present
Lucas Damasceno Pereira is a political scientist and law student at the University of São Paulo. He has experience analyzing international networks and transnational circulation of urban security models mostly focused on the agency of international actors. He is currently working with Democracy and electoral integrity in the Electoral Observatory of the Americas, a partnership between the University of São Paulo and the Organization of American States (OAS), and is also a volunteer in Electoral Transparency Brazil responsible for observation of voting abroad. Lucas is an experienced observer and regional coordinator in Electoral Observation Missions deployed by the OAS.

Email: lucas.damasceno.pereira@usp.br

Antoine Perret

September 2012 - May 2014
Antoine Perret received his PhD in Law at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). His dissertation discussed on the role of the Inter-American System of Human Rights in facing the challenges posed by private military and security companies in Latin America. He has collaborated with the Geneva Center for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and the UN Working Group on Mercenaries, and has taught courses in international relations at the Universidad Externado de Colombia. Antoine received an LLM from the European University Institute, an MA in International Affairs from the Universidad Externado de Colombia (Bogotá, Colombia) in collaboration with Sciences Po (Paris, France) and Columbia University (New York, USA), and a BA in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva, Switzerland).

Camila Pineiro Harnecker

June 2018 - December 2018
Camila Piñeiro Harnecker is a professor, researcher and consultant in the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy at the University of Havana. Her work focuses on economic democracy, self-management, democratic planning, workers’ cooperatives, and business administration. She has taught undergraduate classes on the Cuban Economy and Research Methodology as well as Cooperatives’ Governance in the Cooperatives’ Management and Development Masters Program at FLACSO-UH. She is author of Guía Introductoria sobre Cooperativismo para Cuba (Ed. Caminos, 2015) and Repensando el Socialismo Cubano: Propuestas para una economía democrática y cooperativa (Ruth Casa Editorial, 2013), and the edited volume Cooperatives and Socialism: A View from Cuba (Palgrave, 2012).

She has been a consultant to the Union of Local Industry (UNIL), a group of state enterprises in Havana, the Office of the Havana City Historian, and the Ministry of Light Industry, among other organizations. She is a representative of the Havana’s section of the “Cooperativism Society” part of the National Association of Economists and Accountants (Asociación Nacional de Economistas y Contadores- ANEC), member of the IberoAmerican Observatory on Local Development and Social Economy (Observatorio Iberoamericano del Desarrollo Local y la Economía Social - OIDLES), and the International Association for the Economics of Participation (IAFEP). She is also part of the editorial board of Otra Economía (RILESS) and WorkingUSA.

She has a M.A. in Latin American Studies with an emphasis on sustainable development from the University of California at Berkeley (2006), completing a thesis project on the relationship between workplace democracy and solidarity on selected Venezuelan cooperatives. In 2011, she earned a M.B.A from the University of Havana, with a case study on the cooperativization of an enterprise in UNIL. In 2018, she completed a Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Havana, looking at the social and economic performance of the new non-agricultural cooperatives and the factors that determine their results.

Inés M. Pousadela

June 2013 - November 2014
Inés M. Pousadela holds a PhD in Political Science (Universidad de Belgrano, Argentina), a Master's Degree in Economic Sociology (IDEAS-UNSAM, Argentina), and a Bachelor's Degree (Licenciatura) in Political Science from the University of Buenos Aires. Former professor and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires, she has alternated for the past few years between academic research in Latin American Studies at institutions such as Georgetown University (CLAS) and the University of Maryland (LASC), and independent political consultancy with NGOs and international organizations (IDB, UNDP).

She has published several books on political representation and participation in Argentina and Latin America, as well as a number of journal articles and book chapters on political theory, democratization and social mobilization, political culture, corruption, transparency, and accountability. The former include Entre la deliberación política y la terapia de grupo, La experiencia de las asambleas barriales-populares en la Argentina de la crisis (2011), Ver a través. Poder, rendición de cuentas y sociedad civil (2008, co-authored with Anabel Cruz), and Que se vayan todos. Enigmas de la representación política (2006).

Dr. Pousadela's project at CLALS explored the relationships between social protest, art, and performance, and was based on previous research on the experiences of the Chilean student movement, the women's movement in Uruguay, and the LGBT movement in Argentina.

Alexandre Queiroz

December 2021 - May 2022
Alexandre Queiroz was a PhD student in Social History at University of São Paulo (USP) from 2019 until 2022 and a Research Fellow at American University. He developed an investigation about the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights from its foundation in 1959 until the 1980s, which includes field research in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and the United States.

Previously, he was History professor at University Center Sumaré (2018 - 2020). Queiroz received his Master in History in 2018 at Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), where he also got his bachelor's. He is author of "Revolução e Paraíso: Conflito de ideias na igreja latino-americana (1968-1979)" published by Federal University of Latin America Integration Press (2021) (https://portal.unila.edu.br/editora/livros/revolucao-e-paraiso) and co-organizer of "Das Violências na História: Instituições, (inter)subjetividades e Direitos Humanos." He is a member of the History of the Americas Research Laboratory (LAPHA/ UNIFESP) and the History of the Americas Studies Laboratory (LEHA/ USP). Alexandre Queiroz's research interests include Contemporary Latin American History and Inter-Americans relations during the Cold War, with emphasis on Human Rights and Catholic Church, Political History and Intellectual History.

Email: aoliveira@american.edu

Rafael Mafei Rabelo Queiroz

December 2016 - February 2017
Rafael Mafei Rabelo Queiroz is a tenured Professor at the University of São Paulo Law School in Brazil. He holds a Ph.D. in Law from the same institution, and was a Doctoral Fellow at Max Planck Institute for International and Criminal Law in Freiburg, Germany. Professor Queiroz works with the history and theory of Brazilian legal culture and institutions, in the areas of Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, and Human Rights. He previously collaborated on an earlier CLALS project, Religion & Violence in Latin America, coordinated by Alexander Wilde, and contributed a chapter to the edited volume Religious Responses to Violence: Human Rights in Latin American Past and Present (Notre Dame, 2015). During his current stay, he will be focused on the legal aspects of presidential impeachment in Brazil.

Beatriz Rey

September 2020 - July 2021
Beatriz Rey is a Research Fellow at the Center for Latin American & Latino Studies (CLALS) at American University and a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. She is also a research assistant at the Qualitative Data Repository. Her research analyzes legislative effectiveness in Brazil and legislative politics in Latin America more broadly. She also studies public policy and qualitative methods. Beatriz holds a master’s degree in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Faculdade Cásper Líbero. 

Marcus Rocha

September 2017 - February 2018
Marcus Rocha is a Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). He holds a Masters degree in Political Science from the same university. His dissertation research explores the internal controls in the Brazilian executive branch and the control of corruption in Brazilian municipalities. His research interests include institutions, federalism, public planning, control of corruption, and research methods. Marcus is also the current Chair of the Students Section of Latin American Studies Association.

Gilberto Marcos Antonio Rodrigues

January 2017 - June 2017
Gilberto Marcos Antonio Rodrigues holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil, in addition to a Law Degree from the same institution. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Center for Civil and Human Rights at University of Notre Dame in 2010 and completed a M.A. in International Relations at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. Professor Rodrigues is a tenured Adjunct Professor at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC) in São Bernardo, Brazil, where he teaches International Relations and works with the graduate program in Human and Social Sciences. He is also a researcher at the National Scientific and Technological Council (CNPq). His research interests include International Organizations, Human Rights, Civil Society, International Refugee Law, Brazilian Foreign Policy and Federalism. Professor Rodrigues is a member of the IADB's Civil Society Consultative Group in Brazil and a Board Member of the Regional Coordinator of Economic and Social Research (CRIES) in Buenos Aires. Among his recent publications are "Concurrent Powers in Brazil's Federal System" in Concurrent powers in Federal Systems (Brill-Nijhooff, 2017) and "Regional implementation of Peacekeeping: Notes and Lessons from the Brazilian Experience in the MINUSTAH" in Perspectives on Peacekeeping and Atrocity Prevention. Expanding Stakeholders and Regional Arrangements (Springer, 2015).

Ana Isabel Rodríguez Iglesias

February 2017 - January 2018
Ana Isabel Rodríguez Iglesias is a Ph.D. candidate in International Politics and Conflict Studies at the University of Coimbra (Portugal). Her dissertation examines the power-resistance dynamics surrounding the struggle for peace in the recent peace negotiations in Colombia. She holds three M.A. degrees, including in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University (2014), in International Relations (2010), and in Studies of the European Union (2012), both from the Universidad CEU San Pablo in Madrid. She has been awarded the FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) Scholarship from the Government of Portugal to complete her Ph.D., and also received a Fulbright Scholarship for her work at Georgetown University. In 2016, she was awarded the Curriculum Fellowship Awardee for teaching a seminar on Civil Resistance at the University of Coimbra by the International Center on Non-violent Conflict.

During her studies and before pursuing her Ph.D., she worked as a researcher and consultant at various international organizations, think tanks, and universities, including the Inter-American Development Bank, Human Rights Watch, CSIS, and the Institute of European Studies of the University CEU San Pablo.

Fernando Rojas

June 2012 - June 2013
Fernando Rojas earned his Master's degree in Public Administration (M.P.A.) at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; his LL.M. at Harvard Law School; International Tax Program Certificate at Harvard Law School; and completed Law Studies at the Law School, Rosario University in Bogota, Colombia. Prior to becoming a fellow at CLALS, Rojas worked for 12 years with the World Bank as a Lead Public Sector Management Specialist for the Latin America and the Caribbean (LCR) Region, working on a wide range of topics such as state reform, fiscal decentralization, public management, and institutional development, both at national and subnational levels in countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.

Fernando Rojas' publications include Elementos de Finanzas Publicas en Colombia (Temis, Bogota, 1985, with O. Alviar); "Economia Publica Contemporánea: Restructuración Gradual e Imperceptible de una Disciplina" (ESAP, Bogota, 1996); "The Demand for Governance and Quality of Government", "At the Crossroads of Decentralization: Recentralization, Federalization", "Reform of Public Administration and of the State in Colombia", in Colombia: The Economic Foundations of Peace (The World Bank 2003); and "Partnering for Services in Santa Cruz, Bolivia" and "Partnering for Services for Planning and Management in Cali, Colombia", in Leadership and Innovation in Subnational Government: Case Studies from Latin America (WBI Development Studies, The World Bank 2003).

Irma Sandoval

August 2012 - June 2013
Irma Sandoval is a Professor at the Institute for Social Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and an international expert in transparency, corruption control, and political economy. She currently serves as Director of the Laboratory for the Documentation and Analysis of Corruption and Transparency at UNAM and was the 2009 recipient of the prestigious Manuel Espinosa Yglesias award for her academic work in political economy. She holds an MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz as well as an MA in Latin American Studies from UNAM. She has two BAs, one in Economics from UNAM and the other in Sociology from the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City (UAM).

Her most recent books include: Contemporary Debates on Corruption & Transparency: Rethinking State, Market & Society (IIS-UNAM/World Bank, Mexico City/Washington, DC, 2011) and Crisis, Rentismo e Intervencionismo Neoliberal en la Banca: México, 1982-1999 (Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias, Mexico City, 2011). She has published over two dozen book chapters and journal articles in peer-reviewed journals, including the Administrative Law Review, Revista Mexicana de Sociología, Revista Argumentos, Perfiles Latinoamericanos and Fondo de Cultura Económica. She has worked as a senior consultant to the World Bank, UNDP, Global Integrity, the Open Society Institute, and the Budget Accountability Project. While at CLALS, Sandoval's research focused on public sector accountability in the wake of decades of orthodox economic policies.

Héctor Silva Ávalos

September 2013 - March 2018
Héctor Silva Ávalos is the former Deputy Chief of Mission at the El Salvador Embassy in Washington, DC. Silva Ávalos holds a Bachelor's degree in journalism from the Universidad Centroamericana, El Salvador; a Master's in TV production, Ayuntamiento de Vitoria, Spain; and a Masters in journalism from Universidad de Barcelona and University of Columbia. He has 15 years of experience as an investigative reporter in La Prensa Gráfica, a major Salvadoran newspaper. As an expert on Salvadoran organized crime he has researched and authored journalistic pieces quoted in U.S. and Salvadoran publications on the topics of Los Perrones, one of the main DTOs in El Salvador; Mexican cartel penetration in Central America; and the influence of the Colombian FARC in drug trafficking in Central America. He authors two blogs on organized crime and U.S.-El Salvador-Central America relations. As a Research Fellow, he has undertaken one year of research resulting in the publication Infiltrators: A Chronicle of Corruption in the National Civil Police of El Salvador.

With support from the Arca Foundation, he is currently conducting research for a book-length project on the 1989 Jesuit Massacre and the case's enduring influence on the fortunes of El Salvador's justice system following the 1992 Peace Accords.

Barbara Stallings

January 2014 - August 2014
Barbara Stallings is the William R. Rhodes Research Professor at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, co-director of Brown's Graduate Program in Development, and editor of Studies in Comparative International Development. She is past director of the Institute and of its Political Economy and Development Program. Dr. Stallings has a PhD in economics from Cambridge University and a PhD in political science from Stanford University. Prior to joining the Institute in 2002, she was director of the Economic Development Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago, Chile, and professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is author or editor of over 12 books and numerous book chapters and articles. She has served on the editorial boards of Studies in Comparative International Development, Oxford Development Studies, Oxford Companion to Politics of the World, International Studies Quarterly, American Journal of Political Science, and Latin American Research Review.

Dr. Stallings collaborated with CLALS on a research project examining emergent issues and challenges in Latin American and Caribbean economies.

Maria Antonieta del Tedesco Lins

January 2012 - August 2012
Maria Antonieta del Tedesco Lins is a Professor at the Institute of International Relations at the University of São Paulo. She holds a Master's degree in Public Administration and Government from the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a Master's in Gestion et Administration Publiques from the Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium and a PhD in Business Economics from FGV-SP.

Her expertise is in monetary and financial economics, international finance and regional financial integration. Her research at CLALS focused on the implications of monetary, foreign exchange and capital account policies for regional financial integration in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico from 1990-2010. Another study compares the role played by public financial institutions in Brazil and India.

Dolores Tierney

August 2016 - January 2017
Dolores Tierney is a Senior Lecturer in Film in the School of Media, Film and Music at Sussex University (UK). She has published widely on Latin(o/a) American media in various journals, has written a single-authored monograph, Emilio Fernandez: Pictures in the margins (Manchester University Press, 2007), and co-edited two anthologies, Latsploitation, Exploitation Cinema and Latin America (Routledge, 2009) and The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). During her time as research fellow at the CLALS she completed a book-length study of Latin America's current transnational auteurs.

Ali Valenzuela

August 2014 - May 2015 
Ali A. Valenzuela is Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He received his PhD in political science from Stanford University, and has centered his teaching and research on American electoral politics, with a focus on Latino public opinion, immigrant socialization, voter turnout using field experiments, religion and politics, and the politics of racial and ethnic identity in the US. His current research uses surveys and geographic data to investigate contextual and institutional sources of politicized group identities. This work is complemented by field and survey experiments that test the consequences of identity-based political appeals on voter turnout and support for public policies. A third area of his research asks how regular churchgoing and church characteristics influence policy views, interest in politics, group attachments and party identification choices among religious individuals in the U.S. His research has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, American Politics Research and Presidential Studies Quarterly.

Luciano Vaz Ferreira

February 2013 - March 2013
Luciano Vaz Ferreira received his PhD in international strategic studies at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS in Brazil. He received a Bachelor's degree in law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, and a Master's degree in law from the University of the Sinos Valley.

Vaz Ferreira has taught international law and human rights at Faculdade Porto-Alegrense and Faculdade de Desenvolvimento do Rio Grande do Sul at the Laureate International Universities, two educational institutions located in Porto Alegre. He also has been a civil servant, working with public policy at the state government. He holds the position of legal advisor at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.

While at CLALS, he researched the "role of Brazil in transnational bribery," exploring the implementation of international anti-corruption law in the Brazilian context, with a particular focus on international business. He has published several articles about international and comparative law in Brazilian journals.

His research areas of interest include globalization, governance, control of corruption, human rights, and international and comparative law.

Alexander Wilde

January 2012 - May 2021
Alexander Wilde was Vice President for Communications at the Ford Foundation and headed Ford's regional office for the Andes and Southern Cone. He was also a senior fellow at the Helen Kellogg Institute (Notre Dame) and the Latin American Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center (Washington, DC). He formerly directed the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and has taught at Georgetown, George Washington, Notre Dame, Lawrence (Wisconsin), Haverford College, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Most recently, Professor Wilde directed the CLALS project on Religion and Violence in Latin America, supported by a two-year grant from the Luce Foundation. His scholarly research has addressed religion, human rights, democracy and historical memory in Latin America. He is the co-editor of The Progressive Church in Latin America and author of Conversaciones de caballeros: La quiebra de la democracia en Colombia. He serves on several international advisory boards and has advised various award-winning documentary films related to the themes of his research.

Degrees
PhD, Political Science, Columbia University
BA, Government, Lawrence University (Wisconsin)