Graduate Student Directory

Research Interests

Whiteness, Privilege, Racializing Affect, Political Generations, Latin America, Brazilian Northeast.

My research centers on the contours and nuanced meanings of whiteness in the Américas. I am particularly intrigued by how whiteness is constructed and experienced differently across Brazil and within the Brazilian Northeast region. Despite these differences, recent research has identified common threads of whiteness as an identity, a set of practices, and a source of power that spans the hemisphere. I aim to delve deep into these similarities and differences by investigating the meanings of whiteness among white, heterosexual, middle-class, northeasterners men who experienced as young adults the political implications of the 2013 Manifestations of June, the social turmoil of extreme political polarization, the rise of the Far-Right, and the return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the presidency. Hence, I hope to contribute to critically examining race, privilege, and power in the Américas to broaden the discussions on whiteness within Latin American Studies.

Biography, Education and Training

- Ph.D. Student in Latin America & Latino Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz 

- M.A. Education - University of Porto, Portugal (2021) Thesis: Seres e Saberes – Outridades e Violências: Contributos decoloniais para a desconstrução de privilégios.

- B.A. History, Federal University of Pernambuco UFPE, Brazil (2015)

As an educator, I devoted over five years of my career to teaching history in high schools in Brazil. In 2019/2020, I enrolled in the Masters of Education program at the University of Porto in Portugal, where I further examined the relationship between privilege and violence. My Master's thesis explores the intersection of gender-based violence, heteronormativity, patriarchy, and whiteness through Decolonial lenses.

Honors, Awards and Grants

- Latin American & Latino Studies Department QE Fellowship (Winter 2024)

- Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Américas Graduate Student Grant (Fall 2023) - Project: “Political Generations and Racializing

Affects: Whiteness in a Decade of Political Upheaval in Brazil (2013-2023)”

- Graduate Dean's Research Travel Grant (Summer 2023)

- Graduate Student Researcher - Special Project Monitoring the Information Disorder in the 2022 Brazilian Presidential Elections (Sprout Grant Institute for Social Transformation UCSC - Summer 2022)

- Chancellor's fellowship UCSC (Academic Year 2021/22)

Selected Presentations

Panel Presentation

"Monitoring Racism on Twitter in the 2022 Brazilian Presidential Campaign." UCSC - UNICAMP Symposium: The Far-Right and Democracy: Brazil and the Américas. September 28, 2023. Santa Cruz, CA.

Teaching Interests

Teaching Assistant Experience:

- Introduction to Latin American and Latino Studies;

- Contemporary Brazil;

- Drugs, Addiction, and Recovery in the Américas;

- Race and Mobility.