I have a broad international and interdisciplinary background on sustainable development, focused on its policy and governance dimensions.
I specialize in produced resources such as food and energy, with particular interest in themes of sustainable rural development, food security, renewable energy, value chains, and in linking international and domestic spheres of policy and governance.
My education includes: concurrent bachelor and teaching degrees in life sciences (2005); a Master’s in Environmental Studies (2008) with research on agri-food systems sustainability in Brazil and Canada; and a PhD in Environmental Studies (2014) with research on biofuels, comparing policy and governance frameworks in Brazil, India and Indonesia.
My expertise is in qualitative social science frameworks (e.g. analysis of policy instruments and policy coherence; power relations, participation and governance; agency and stakeholder analysis) and methods (e.g. case study comparisons, in-depth interviews, focus groups).
That is combined with wide fieldwork experience across Asia, Africa and Latin America. In addition to the research for my academic degrees, I have done consultancy work in Brazil, Indonesia and sub-Saharan Africa on indigenous land policy, climate-smart agriculture, REDD+, and recently concluded a post-doctoral programme on foreign finance for forest conservation and sustainable rural development under a “landscape approach” in Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico.
I have published extensively in scientific journals, with UN agencies (e.g. UNRISD, UNDP), NGO partners (e.g. WWF), and in the general media. In May 2013, The Guardian featured a newspiece “Biofuels production and rural poverty” based on my research (see it online).
On a personal level, I am an enthusiastic traveller and a global citizen (having grown up in Brazil, lived two years in Canada, seven years in the Netherlands, and so far five years in Sweden) fond of multiculturalism, World History, languages and good food. I speak English, Spanish and French in addition to my native (Brazilian) Portuguese, and I have done research in all of them.
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