My scholarly work examines the causes and the consequences of youth violence in Brazil. Much of my research is concerned with understanding how institutions and policies that have been created to curb youth violence can ramp-up its practice. I have conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Brazilian juvenile prisons, courts, group homes, and drug treatment centers.

My research has been funded by competitive grants from the Fulbright-Hays Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the São Paulo Foundation for Research (FAPESP), and the AM Foundation, among others.

I hold a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from Columbia University and have been a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo and in the Drugs, Security, and Democracy Program of the Social Science Research Council.