About me
I am a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University, visiting assistant professor at Purdue University, and Global Fellow at the Wilson Center. I am an expert in sub-national development, citizen security and rule of law. My most current research analyzes labor markets, productivity, and development indicators, to disentangle how violence, conflict, rule of law, and corruption have affected them. I specialize in Mexico and Central America.
My research was awarded the American Political Science Association’s Leonard D. White prize to the best doctoral dissertation written in 2014, and Harvard’s Merit Fellowship for Outstanding Research in 2011. I was also selected as one of the top-12 young experts by NBER’s Working Group of the Economics of Crime in 2012, and profiled at the Harvard Gazette as one of the 15 Harvard’s stellar graduates of 2013.
As researcher, I have worked with the World Bank (STC), the Guggenheim Foundation of New York City, the United Nations, USAID, The Center for US-Mexico Studies, the Trans-border Institute, and Mexico’s ministries of social development (SEDESOL), education (SEP), and security (SNSP). I was also director of México ¿Cómo Vamos?, a start-up think tank specialized in translating research to the language of media and government officials, and I have served as adviser to Mexico’s Minister of Finance, and to Mexican President’s Spokesman.
The results of my research have been published at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and are regularly shared in my weekly Sunday OpEd at Mexico's National newspaper Excélsior.
