Maria Puolakkainen is a Brazil Researcher at ACLED and has been with the organization since October 2021. She codes real-time data and reports on political violence and protests movements in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo states on a weekly basis. She holds an MPhil in Latin American Studies from the University of Oxford and a BSc in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Warwick. Maria has over three years of experience in research on the political economy of inequality and conflict, and from the development sector, working with Venezuelan migrants in Colombia.