Biography

Growing up in the Bolivian Amazon, I witnessed both the construction of infrastructure and the creation of natural reserves. The puzzling tensions between these projects sparked my interest in the politics of the built and natural environment. I moved to Mexico to pursue a BA in Industrial Design at Tec the Monterrey, a training that left me well attuned to the ways in which material cultures (re)produce human-nature relations. During my MPhil in Latin American Studies, I studied the expansion of infrastructures, socio-environmental conflicts, and the emergence of the bio-tech approach to regional development. Now, through my PhD in Geography, I seek to understand the dynamics between scientific knowledge and entrepreneurial networks, and the role that such dynamics play in shaping visions of development in the Amazon. More specifically, I plan to examine how genetic and genomic sciences are enabling the emergence of new discourses and practices of development in relation to the enormous biological diversity concentrated in the Amazon Basin. My research interests also include Indigenous Knowledge, Bioeconomy, Intellectual Property of Genetic Material, and Histories of Development.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Latin American Studies 2020
Tec de Monterrey (ITESM CEM) Industrial Design 2012