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I am Assistant Professor (with tenure) in the School of Politics and International Relations and a Fellow with the Geary Institute for Public Policy at University College Dublin. I am also a Research Affiliate with the Violence and Transitional Justice Lab at the University of Notre Dame. I was previously Assistant Professor in the Division of International Studies at Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City, and a Fellow of the  Mexican National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT)  I hold a PhD in political science from the University of Notre Dame, where I was also a PhD fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and at the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem). 

 

My work explores the conditions under which police reform contributes to (or hinders) the respect of human rights and organized criminal violence in new democracies. Relatedly, I conduct research on the determinants of organized criminal behavior. Within this line of research, I focus on the role of the security apparatus in increasing or decreasing violent criminal responses, as well as other criminal behavior such as market capture. Part of this research has been published in the Journal of Peace Research, Sociological Methods & Research, Studies in Comparative International Development, the Journal of Urban Affairs, and Qualitative & Mixed Methods Research, among others. 


I am also interested in issues of conceptualization, measurement, and mixed methods research design. In my research, I combine qualitative and quantitative methods, including quasi-experimental and experimental designs, and qualitative fieldwork. 

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My work has been supported by the National Agency for Research and Innovation in Uruguay, Evidence in Governance and Politics, Notre Dame International, USAID’s Research and Innovation Fellowship Program, and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.

 

I hold a Master's degree in Peace Studies from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from Universidad de la República in my home country of Uruguay. Prior to graduate studies I served as a specialist for the United Nations in Uruguay. 

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