Edward Telles

Marcelo Paixão is an Associate Professor of University of Texas at Austin where he teaches in the department of African and African Diaspora Studies (AADS) and at the Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Research (LLILAS). Previously, he taught at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), at the Economic Institute (IE). White there, he was the Coordinator of the Laboratory of Economic, Historic, Social and Statistics of Race Relations (LAESER), the only one in the country that focuses on the racial inequality inside a center of study and research in Economic Sciences. Prof. Paixão was a Visting Scholar at Princeton University between 2012 and 2013. He also published, among other books and articles, “A lenda da modernidade encantada: por uma crítica ao pensamento social brasileiro sobre relações raciais e projeto de Estado-Nação” (Ed. CRV, 2014);” and ”500 anos de solidão: estudos sobre as desigualdades raciais no Brasil (Ed Appris, 2013).

Graziella Moraes Silva is a Professor of Sociology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) associated to the Graduate Program in Sociology and Anthropology (PPGSA) and vice-coordinator to the Interdisciplinary Center for Inequality Studies (NIED) in Brazil. In September 2016, she is joining the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies - Geneva, Switzerland as an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology of Development. She received her PhD in Sociology from Harvard University in 2010 with a dissertation comparing the experiences and perceptions of black professionals in Brazil and South Africa. She was also one of the co-authors of the book "Getting Respect: Responding to Stigma and Discrimination in the United States, Brazil, and Israel" (forthcoming 2016, Princeton Press) with Michèle Lamont (Harvard University).

Graziella's current research projects include a comparison of elites’ attitudes about poverty and inequality in Brazil, South Africa and Uruguay (with Elisa Reis, UFRJ and Chana Teeger, University of Johanesburg) and a comparison of horizontal stratification among black professionals in Brazil and United States (with Thomas DiPrete, Columbia University and Flavio Carvalhaes, UFRJ).

René D. Flores is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences and Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology.
Flores received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy from Princeton University in 2014. His primary research interests are in the fields of international migration, race and ethnicity, and social stratification. His dissertation examined the social consequences of subnational restrictionist immigration policies in the U.S. using administrative, ethnographic, and social media data. His current research projects include an experimental study of the consequences of interracial relationships, an investigation of the political determinants of public opinion, and a set of papers assessing the adaptation of second-generation immigrants in Europe.
His work has appeared in American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and Social Problems, among others.

Carlos Augusto Viáfara López is a Colombian Economist, currently Associate Professor in the Economics Department at the Universidad del Valle, Cali - Colombia. Viáfara has extensive research experience in the area of economic and social development and public policies for Afro-Colombians. He has several book and journal publications on sociodemographic issues, poverty and living conditions, access to education, the labor market, and social mobility for the Afro-Colombian population. He has participated in the development of several initiatives including government, international cooperation, and civil society in the preparation of development plans and policies in favor of Afro-Colombians. Currently he is director of the Center for Research and Documentation socioeconomic (CIDSE ) of the Universidad del Valle.