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.

My work investigates (1) state-business relations and private investment in global South contexts; (2) financialization and democratic politics; (3) forms of political mobilization and participatory knowledge production.

I explore these issues through research on the governance of key social infrastructures — from water and sanitation to 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

“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.