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¡Hola! I am a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Vanderbilt University, where I study public opinion and political behavior in Latin America. Starting in November 2026, I will be a Visiting Scholar at CIDE in Mexico City.

My research starts from a question I find hard to put down. Why do some attempts to erode democracy provoke widespread resistance, while others pass with little opposition? Democratic backsliding rarely announces itself as such. It often comes dressed as a court reform, a constitutional amendment, or a presidential decree defended in the name of democracy. Citizens must decide whether a line has been crossed, whether others see it the same way, and whether doing something about it will make a difference.

I first encountered these questions before graduate school, while working at Mexico’s National Electoral Institute and National Anti-Corruption System. Both were designed to hold political power accountable, yet their authority in the eyes of citizens differed considerably. That experience informs my dissertation, Making Democratic Boundaries Enforceable: Norms, Shared Expectations, and Citizen Sanction, which asks how democratic rules acquire the political force to constrain those in power. Why do citizens recognize some institutional changes as violations of democracy but not others? Why do people who object sometimes remain unwilling to punish those responsible? And who has enough authority to persuade citizens that a democratic boundary has been crossed? My job-market paper, Who Else Would Punish?, examines how expectations about other citizens shape people’s willingness to defend democratic norms. A second paper, Who Speaks for Democracy?, explores when courts, electoral authorities, and other institutions can help citizens make sense of contested political changes.

These questions are part of a broader interest in how citizens and democratic institutions shape one another. Why does support for a president make some citizens more willing to tolerate weakened checks on executive power, and how far can information change their minds? What do people learn about democracy when they participate in its institutions, whether by administering an election or proposing a project for their neighborhood? I study these questions through surveys, experiments, and administrative data, primarily in Latin America. Across my work, I want to understand how citizens give democratic institutions their meaning and political force, and how those institutions, in turn, shape what citizens believe democracy is and what they can do within it.