I am a scholar of Latin American politics and international affairs and Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Latin American Studies at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA), University of Oxford. My research examines the political economy of state power, security, and governance, with a particular focus on Brazil and its place in a changing international order. I am also Head of the Brazilian Studies Programme, and Course Director for the MPhil and MSc degrees at OSGA's Latin American Centre.

In May 2027, I will begin a three-year Leverhulme Fellowship at OSGA.

My research develops along two interconnected lines. The first concerns the politics of drugs in Latin America — how social movements and civil society organizations have worked to disassemble, circumvent, or reform a century-old prohibition framework; how regulatory agencies are designed to resist exactly this kind of pressure, and how organized groups manage to pierce through regardless; and what the recent wave of drug policy experimentation tells us about the future of global drug governance. A new project, for which I have won a John Fell Oxford University Press Award and a Leverhulme Fellowship, examines why prohibition has endured for as long as it has — what political, economic, and institutional forces sustain a framework that demonstrably fails on its own terms, and whose critics have spent decades attempting to dismantle.

The second line concerns foreign policy and international order. Focusing particularly on Brazil, I examine how Latin American states respond to geopolitical rivalry, navigate relationships with major powers, and position themselves within the Global South. My work considers the politics of non-alignment and hedging, as well as changing attitudes towards liberal international norms.

My peer-reviewed work has appeared in Global Policy, International Journal of Health Policy and Management, Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, and Bulletin of Latin American Research. I have also written for Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Folha de São Paulo, and O Globo, and frequently provide expert commentary to the media.

In 2026, I received a University of Oxford Award for Excellence and a Teaching Excellence Award from the University's Social Sciences Division.

I hold a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge and an MPhil in Development Studies from Oxford. Before entering academic life, I served for thirteen years in the Brazilian Diplomatic Corps, working under four presidential administrations.