Meet the team

Principal Investigator

Dr Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos

Andreza is the director of the King's Brazil Institute, at King's College London and before that she directed the Brazilian Studies Programme at University of Oxford. Her research is concerned with the intersections and dynamics between formal and informal political and economic systems in Brazilian cities. Andreza is particularly interested in employment, migration, and health policies in mining towns in Brazil. Given her interests in local governance and informalities, Andreza is currently looking at sub-national responses to the pandemic in Brazil and has examined the impact of inequality in health policies. Her work has featured in Journals such as Nature Human Behaviour, Science, The Lancet, Ethnography, and others. She is the author or editor of three books focusing on cities in the global south. 

Previously, Andreza worked at the School of Anthropology, also at Oxford, where she is still involved in teaching on urban ethnographic methods. She completed her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, Masters in Social Sciences at the University of Freiburg, University of KwaZulu Natal and Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science at the University of Brasilia.

For publications and academic background please check her webpage.

Twitter: @Andreza_Aruska

andreza.desouzasantos@lac.ox.ac.uk

andreza.souza_santos@kcl.ac.uk

Professor Ana Elisabete de Almeida Medeiros is an Architect and Urban Planner and professor at the University of Brasilia. With a research project funded by FAPDF – Federal District Research Support Foundation, she was a visiting academic at the LAC - Latin American Centre, University of Oxford (2019-2020), where she conducted a research project exploring issues situated in the intersection of cultural heritage policies, city diplomacy and social participation in an age of urban governance. She has a postdoctoral position in Urbanism from the PACTE Laboratory - IUG / IGEA of UPMF, in Grenoble (2008- 2009), a PhD in Sociology from the University of Brasília (2002) supported by CNPq – National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, a Master in Urbanism from the Institut d'Urbanisme de Grenoble - Université Pierre Mendès France (1997), and she graduated from the Federal University of Pernambuco (1995).

Barbara Abrahao

Barbara is a DPhil candidate in Area Studies at the University of Oxford. Her research and academic interest focuses on environmental politics in relation to “natural capital” and grassroots movements in Latin America. Her DPhil examines the social, political and economical processes entailed by green capitalism, relying on the assumption that they are linked to global exploitation of regions marked by history of poverty, vulnerability and territory labelled as “unproductive”. She gives special attention to processes in which nature is priced through ecosystem services, their effects on the categories of labour, and how it reverberates in subjects and political mobilizations in Brazil. I hope that this research will also contribute to debates on post-extractivism societies and new facades of more-than-human politics.

Before joining Oxford, I undertook my bachelor degree at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica of São Paulo (2013-2017), my masters at the London School of Economics and Political Science (2018-2019) and had work experiences in international institutions and human rights issues.

Dr. Lizandro Lui is Professor at the Pos-Graduate Program in Public Policy and Government at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV-Brasília, Brazil). He's Doctor in Sociology and his research interests involve federalism, local government, implementation and management of public policies.

Dr Claudia Martins 

Cláudia is an Agronomic Engineer and researcher at the Center for Ecology and Environmental Monitoring in the Federal University of São Francisco Valley, Petrolina, PE, Brazil (NEMA/Univasf). She currently works as an expert in socio-environmental conflicts in protected areas (PA) (full protection and sustainable use) established for the protection of threatened with extinction charismatic species of Brazilian wildlife. Claudia acts in PAs with ongoing ecological restoration projects.

Cláudia is also a researcher at the Institute for the Conservation of Neotropical Carnivores (IPC), focused in human-jaguar-and-puma coexistence in Brazilian Northeastern semiarid.

For publications and academic background kindly check

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3528-0877

Brenno Navarro

Brenno is a graduate student in economics at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC) and a research assistant at the University of Oxford. His professional and study topics are related to the study of the Brazilian economy, macroeconomics, marketing, international relations, and financial market.

Lara Moura is an architecture and urbanism student at the University of Brasília - UnB (Brasília, Brazil). She is mainly interested in the areas of cultural heritage, as well as conservation and history of architecture. Furthermore, Lara has interests in the area of development in architecture projects. Lara is currently participating on one of the fronts of the research project “Heritage city timing and scales - the case of Pilar de Goiás”. Lara's has been granted the CNPq and FAPDF Scientific Initiation Incentive Scholarship to support her research titled "Between mining times : the cultural heritage of Pilar de Goiás and the case of Dona Otília's House" (2022/23) and “ Relationships between preservation and preservacionist practice in Pilar de Goiás: considerations about the urban complex” (2023/24).

Laura Elisa Becker Bauer is an undergraduate student in Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Brasília (UnB), Brasília, Brazil. Currently, Laura is participating on one of the fronts of the research project "Heritage City Timing and Scales - the Case of Pilar de Goiás”. Her research “Relation between Mining and Preservationist Practice in Pilar de Goiás: Mercês Church” has been granted by the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) Scientific Initiation Incentive Scholarship (2023/24).

Luísa Vieira is an undergraduate student in Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Brasília (UnB), Brasília, Brazil. Her interests are cultural heritage and conservation. Through 2022 and 2023, she was part of the CAFAU (Architecture and Urbanism Student Council of the University of Brasilia) in the communication area, designing informative content. Currently, she is an intern at Estrela Architecture in Brasília. Furthermore, Luísa is participating on one of the fronts of the research project "Heritage City Timing and Scales - the Case of Pilar de Goiás”. Her major research is "Relation between Mining and Preservationist Practice in Pilar of Goiás: the case of Father Brás House”.

Sabrina Albuquerque Oliveira is an undergraduate student in Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Brasília (UnB), Brasília, Brazil. Her main interests are sustainability, history, and conservation. Currently, she is an intern at the Central Bank of Brazil, focusing on the Currency Museum remodeling. Furthermore, Sabrina is participating on one of the fronts of the research project "Heritage City Timing and Scales - the Case of Pilar de Goiás”. Her major research is “Relation between Mining and Preservationist Practice in Pilar of Goiás: Mother Church”.

Kaio Cardoso, an architecture and urban planning student at the University of Brasília - UnB (Brasília, Brazil), focuses his interest mainly on the development of architectural projects based on vernacular techniques. At the same time, Kaio demonstrated an affinity for the area of heritage. Kaio was awarded Scientific Initiation Incentive Scholarships by the University of Brasília to support his research (2022/23).

Advisor

Max Nathanson

Max currently serves as Economic Development Advisor at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, focusing on the future of work and just energy transitions. He is also Founder and Managing Director of the Oxford Urbanists, a global social enterprise. He previously spent two years as Global Business Development Manager for Colorado Governor Jared Polis, where he led economic development and foreign policy initiatives and directed the Colorado Mask Project as a member of the Governor's COVID-19 Innovation Response Team. He holds a master's degree in Development Studies from Oxford and a bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of Colorado.

Twitter: @MaxNathansonCO

Stakeholder Partner

Giane Boselli holds a MSc in Social Sciences and two BAs in Law and Social Sciences (UNESP|Brazil). She has developed a career of more than 10 years in the management of international cooperation projects, mainly with local governments. She is currently working as a Project Manager for United Nations Development Programme (UNDP-Brazil Country Office), developing a large project about Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals in 116 Brazilian towns affected by the oil and gas chain, with support from Petrobras. She has also worked for UN Women Brazil and Southern Cone, developing international cooperation projects related to SDG 5 with several countries in Latin America. She has also been a Research Analyst at the National Confederation of Municipalities (CNM), being part of the Technical Studies Area and developing studies on local public policies and impacts of federal programs on local governments. Her broader interests are in developing strategies to provide sustainable development and gender equality in Latin American countries, mainly in municipalities affected by oil exploration activities.

Stakeholder Partner

Eduardo Stranz

He has worked for more than 20 years at the National Confederation of Municipalities (CNM) in Brazil, one of the largest organizations in the world representing local governments. Currently, he works as a Senior Advisor to the CNM board, and served for many years as the coordinator of the Technical Studies Area, leading research on municipal public policies and finances. He also leads projects developed by CNM related to the promotion of the Sustainable Development Goals among the 5,568 Brazilian municipalities. He was one of the leading authors of "Mandala ODS” (SDG Mandala), an application available to municipal public managers and society that makes possible to diagnose, monitor and evaluate the performance of Brazilian Municipalities indicators regarding the level of reach of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Twitter: @EStranz