I am an (incoming) Assistant Professor of Politics at Lake Forest College. Before joining Lake Forest college I was a Lecturer in the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University. I received a PhD in Political Science from the same Institute on July 1, 2021. My research focuses on political parties’ survival, parties’ mobilization strategies, and the mechanisms that foster changes in ethnic identities. My dissertation, “Surviving against all odds: Pachakutik’s electoral support, mobilization strategies, and goal achievement between 1996 and 2019”, proposes a theory of party survival that focuses on parties with low levels of electoral support and scarce resources. To illustrate my argument, I use the case of Pachakutik, an indigenous party from Ecuador. I completed over 11 months of fieldwork in Ecuador, where I conducted elite interviews and archival work. I specialize in teaching qualitative methods at the master level and small seminars on political parties and democracy with a regional focus in Latin America at the bachelor level. My work is entirely bilingual: I research, write, and teach in English and Spanish.
Before joining Leiden University, I served at the Ecuadorian Mission to the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington D.C. as Second Secretary Alternate Representative of Ecuador. I joined the Permanent Mission in July 2012. My work there concentrated on the negotiation of Inter-American Human rights conventions.
Interests
- Political parties’ survival
- Political parties’ mobilization strategies
- Electoral behaviour
- Ethnic parties / Ethnic identities
- Qualitative methods
Education
PhD in Political Science, 2021
Leiden University
MSc in Political Science (cum laude), 2015
Leiden University
BSc in Sociology with a minor in Political Science, 2011
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador