political economy + development + politics of finance + data activism + water + gender

I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Business and Society at Queen Mary University of London studying the political economy of sustainable development.

I am broadly interested in the relationship between contemporary capitalist development and democratic politics. My work engages debates on state-market relations, financialization and business power, privatization, and forms of social mobilisation such as data activism. I am also interested in participatory forms of research and knowledge production.

I currently explore these issues through projects on the financing and governance of key social infrastructures like water and sanitation and data and AI systems, on the emergence of sustainable finance, and on activism against gender-based violence. As co-lead of the project Data Against Feminicide, I contributed to the participatory development of AI-based tools that support activist monitoring of feminicide across different contexts. Our work was awarded an Honorary Mention from the European Commission’s 2025 S+T+ARTS Prize, which recognizes innovation at the intersection of society, technology, and the arts.

Projects

Latest

“Corporate AI Threatens Democracy”, Liberatory A.I.

“Securing financial returns in politically uncertain worlds: Finance and urban water politics in Brazil”, EPC: Politics and Space

“Geographies of missing data: Spatializing counterdata production against feminicide,” EPD: Society and Space

“The revolution shall not be automated: On the political possibilities of activism through data & AI,” CLaSP Blog

“Elusive Boundaries: The politics of public-private relations in Brazilian water provision,” Phenomenal World

At QMUL, I am a member of the Centre on Labour, Sustainability and Global Production (CLaSP) and co-edit the CLaSP Blog. I am also part of the Steering Committee of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CRoLAC). I am a research affiliate with the Data + Feminism Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and previously I was a research fellow at the Institute for Applied Economic Research in Brazil, where I worked on projects on democratic institutions and public participation.

I hold a PhD in Political Economy, Development and Planning (‘22) and a Master in City Planning (‘16) from MIT, and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Brasília. At MIT, I was a Presidential Fellow and was selected as a Fellow of the Martin Family Society of Fellows for Sustainability (2019-2020). I was also awarded the Graduate Student Council Teaching Award (2019) for excellence in teaching at a graduate level.