I am an Assistant Professor in Public Policy at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. I earned my Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and my B.A. in political science from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. I grew up in Trujillo, Peru.
My book, Political Parties and Policy Reform: Expansion of Healthcare in Latin America (under review at Cambridge University Press), explores the variation in the expansion of social benefits across new democracies. Through an in-depth comparison of the healthcare reform processes in Chile, Mexico, and Peru that began in the 2000s, I show how the political process behind the formation of the reforms severely affected their success. I analyze the entire policymaking process, from agenda-setting and debate to implementation. This study is based on original data I gathered during 12 months of field research, including over 150 in-depth interviews with political elites, technocrats, and leaders of interest groups.
My research focuses on factors that influence the expansion of social benefits as well as political representation, including gender bias on legislator responsiveness, the expansion of the private healthcare sector, party-voter policy congruence and clientelism, and immigration attitudes. This work has been funded by the Centennial Center at the American Political Science Association (APSA), the Social and Economic Research Consortium (CIES), Washington and Lee University (Lenfest Grants 2019-2023), and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Dissertation Completion, Mellon Dissertation, Off-Campus Dissertation, and Burbank Research Fellowships, Uhlman Summer Research Awards 2014-2017, and Tinker Foundation Pre-dissertation Field Research Grant).