I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My research interests lie in comparative political economy, business in politics, and development, with a focus on subnational governments in Latin America.

My dissertation explores why and how business elites engage with subnational politics and assesses the impact of their involvement on development. I am particularly interested in the conditions under which business elites choose to participate in local politics, the strategies they employ, and the effects of their engagement on policy outcomes and state capacity building. To address these questions, I use a multi-method approach that combines causal inference with observational data, administrative data, original survey experiments and in-depth interviews.

Beyond my dissertation, I also study public opinion, with a particular focus on how individuals form preferences toward markets and political institutions.

My work has been published in Latin American Politics and Society and the Revista de Ciencia Política. Before graduate school, I worked for over five years at policy think tanks in Chile, conducting research on decentralization, fiscal policy, and subnational government.

I hold an M.A. in Political Science from UNC–Chapel Hill, an M.A. in Politics from New York University, and an M.A. in Economics and Public Policy from Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI-Chile). I also earned a B.Sc. in Business Administration and a B.A. in Social Sciences from UAI-Chile.