Mary Arends-Kuenning
Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
University of Illinois

She is an economic demographer who focuses on household decisions. Her research areas include children's schooling and child labor, household consumption, and international migration. She began doing research on Brazil in 1992 as part of her dissertation at the University of Michigan. Her work on Brazil has been published in World Development, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, and as book chapters. This work is often cited in World Bank and United Nations publications and by researchers.

Elizabeth Kiddy
Department of History & Johnson Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Albright College

My recent work has examined the history of the African Diaspora in Brazil, primarily in Minas Gerais, and has been published in articles, chapters, and a book, Blacks of the Rosary, Memory and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil.  My new project focuses on the environmental history of the São Francisco River.

Maxine Margolis
Department of Anthropology
University of Florida

"For the last decade I have been engaged in research and writing about Brazilian emigration to the United States, an area of on-going interest. "

Vania Penha-Lopes

Department of Sociology
Bloomfield College

Vânia Penha-Lopes is Professor of Sociology at Bloomfield College, in New Jersey. A native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, she is a graduate of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Bachelor’s, Social Sciences, with distinction) and New York University (M.A., Anthropology; Ph.D., Sociology). As a post-doctoral fellow at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, she did research on the first graduating class of Brazilian university quota students. Professor Penha-Lopes is co-chair of the Brazil Seminar at Columbia University, co-director of the Center for Alternative Visions at Bloomfield College, a member of the executive committee of the Brazilian Studies Association (2010-14), and a columnist for Afropres. She has received a number of awards, including the Carter G. Woodson Institute Predoctoral Fellowship in Afro-American and African Studies, from the University of Virginia, and the Scholarship for Study Abroad from the Encyclopaedia Britannica do Brasil. She has lectured extensively and published on comparative race relations, African American fatherhood, and racism in Brazil.

Sonia Ranincheski

Research Center and Graduate Program on the Americas

University of Brasilia (CEPPAC/UnB)

Sonia Ranincheski is Social Scientist and Researcher on political sociology, political culture and political elites in Brazil and the Americas. Currently she teaches at the Research Center and Graduate Program on the Americas, the University of Brasilia (CEPPAC/UnB). She has published numerous articles in reviews, both in Brazil and abroad, and her more recent books are "Elite e trabalho no Brasil e Uruguai: a origem do debate" (2010), “Desafios aos Direitos Humanos no Brasil” (2011) and "Américas compartilhadas" (2009).

Marianne Schmink

Latin American Studies and Anthropology

University of Florida

Marianne Schmink is Professor of Latin American Studies and Anthropology at the University of Florida, where she served Director of the Tropical Conservation and Development (TCD) program from 1988-2010. She has co-authored (with Charles H. Wood) Contested Frontiers in Amazonia (Columbia University Press, 1992), and (with Mâncio Lima Cordeiro) Rio Branco:  A Cidade da Florestania (2008, UFPa/UFAC), in addition to three edited books, and over fifty articles, book chapters, and reports. Dr. Schmink has had grants from the Mellon Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation and Moore Foundation to support collaborative research and training programs at UF and in Latin America.