Academic Research Manager
Brazil LAB . Princeton University

I am a social and political historian (Ph.D., Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2016) and currently serve as Academic Research Manager at Princeton University’s Brazil LAB. Before joining the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies in 2018, I worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Public and International Affairs and as a Lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese (2017–2018).

My research focuses on the political economy of war, slavery, and empire-building in Latin America, with a particular emphasis on Brazil’s southern frontiers. I am the author and co-author of several books exploring topics such as Brazilian militias, slavery, German immigration in 19th-century southern Brazil, and European diasporas in the Americas. My most recent book is Lost Writings: The Life and Work of a Seditious Immigrant (with João Biehl, published in German and Portuguese). I am currently finalizing two manuscripts: The Fulcrum of the Empire: Military Elites, Slavery, and the Politics of War in Nineteenth-Century Brazil and Building an Empire in the Age of Revolutions: A Global History of Brazilian Diplomacy.

My projects have been supported by several institutions, including the Fulbright Program, the Luso-American Development Foundation, Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, the Capes Foundation, and Princeton University’s Program in Latin American Studies, High Meadows Environmental Institute, Humanities Council, and Data-Driven Social Science Initiative.

At the Brazil LAB, I co-coordinate the research hubs Safeguarding Amazonia, Inequalities, and Racialized Frontiers, while leading the LAB’s programming planning and public outreach initiatives. 

At Princeton, I also teach courses on the history of Amazonia and Brazil-Africa relations. In 2024, I co-curated the exhibition Denilson Baniwa: Under the Skin of History at the Princeton University Art Museum gallery Art@Bainbridge.