Bio

I was born in a small town in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. When I was 6, my parents moved to Brasília where I was raised and studied Agronomy at the University of Brasília. After graduation, I moved to Belém, in the northern part of the country at the mouth of the Amazon River. I became fascinated with the Amazonian ecosystem and its people and got engaged in research under the guidance of Prof. Christopher Uhl, a well known tropical ecologist who had founded a research institute Imazon.

During that time, I collaborated with a few World Bank economists who were conducting environmental policy impact analyses in Brazil. That experience motivated me to pursue my masters in agricultural economics at PennState and my PhD in geography at Michigan State University under the supervision of Prof. Robert Walker, now at the University of Florida. I recognized the power of economic and geographic theory, econometrics, and GIS spatial modeling & analytical capabilities to study environmental issues in tropical areas, which continues to be the focus of my current research.

After my graduate studies, I taught in the Environmental Studies Program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, a small liberal arts college along the shorelines of the gorgeous Seneca Lake in Geneva in central New York. After four years, I left the harsh winters and mild summers of Geneva to the harsh summers and mild winters of Austin, Texas where I currently live.