My work looks at an emerging movement against mercury exposure from illegal gold mining within Munduruku territory, situated within Tapajós River Basin of the Central Brazilian Amazon. I am particularly interested in the relationship between indigenous and western scientific knowledge practices in evidencing harm from chemical exposure within one of the most heavily mined indigenous territories in all of Brazil. Since 2016, I have worked in the Tapajós River Basin as a collaborator alongside indigenous and riverine associations. In the past, I was technical advisor for the Wakoborũn Munduruku Women’s Association and the Munduruku Ipreg̃ Ayũ Movement, where I still provide support on legal matters surrounding territorial disputes and public health concerns. At UC Berkeley, I am a part of the Designated Emphasis (DE) in Science and Technology Studies (STS). I also received my B.A. at UC Berkeley in Geography (honors) and Political Economy in 2016.
My individual research and studies have been supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP) as well as several fellowships from UC Berkeley, including the Eugene Cota Robles fellowship, the FLAS for Portuguese language studies, the CLACS Tinker field research grant, the Global Democratic Commons fellowship, and the Lau Fellowship. I am also currently a collaborator on a Wenner Gren Engaged Research Grant where I work together with Brazilian scholars and Munduruku professors on the production of educational books for village schools. I’m fluent in both Portuguese and Spanish and have worked with translation in its various forms.
You can check out both my academic work and public scholarship, here.
