Biography

I received my training in history from the University of Chicago, working on nineteenth-century Brazil in connection to the broader Atlantic. As a historian, I am concerned with the beginnings of policymaking in Brazil, with a special focus on the intertwined development of the regulation of commerce, migration and landed property. My dissertation, titled ‘The Business of Peopling: Colonization and Politics in Imperial Brazil, 1822-1860,’ examines the emergence of directed migrations as a niche market.
I have taught in different places and at different levels, including in public high schools in New York City, at the University of Chicago, and in an associates degree program at the San Quentin state prison in California. In my practice, I focus on creative course design, backward planning and the development of assessment tools. I have taught courses in Latin American, Atlantic, U.S. and migration history.
Field or archival research has taken me to different parts of Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. During the Max Weber Fellowship, one of my objectives is to incorporate the findings from my latest research in Brazil on the advent of mass migrations and the militarization of internal migrants in order to complete an extended book manuscript based on my dissertation.