John D. French
Director, Duke Brazil Initiative
Duke University
John D. French is a professor of History and African and African-American Studies at Duke University in Durham North Carolina. With a B.A. from Amherst College, he received his doctorate at Yale in 1985 under Brazilian historian Emília Viotti da Costa. Since 1979, he has been studying labor politics, populism, and the left in Latin America and has published 42 refereed articles as well as three books: The Brazilian Workers ABC (1992/1995 in Brazil), Drowning in Laws: Labor Law and Brazilian Political Culture (2004; 2002 in Brazil), and a coedited volume The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers (1997). His new book entitled Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President was published by UNC Press in October 2020 and is available in Portuguese free as a downloadable PDF here: https://fpabramo.org.br/publicacoes/estante/lula-e-a-politica-da-astucia-de-metalurgico-a-presidente-do-brasil/ Reviewed in Foreign Affairs, it was featured as one of ten “Books that explain the world” by the Guardian’s Rio correspondent Tom Phillips. To date, it has won several prizes and been the subject of five roundtables and four podcasts discussion with the author.
Gladys Mitchell-Walthour, PhD
North Carolina Central University
Gladys Mitchell-Walthour, PhD is Professor and Dan T. Blue Endowed Chair of Political Science, North Carolina Central University. Dr. Mitchell-Walthour studies racial politics in Brazil, affirmative action, and the intersection of social welfare, race, and gender. In 2024, she published the co-edited volume, “Black Lives Matter in Latin America” (Palgrave MacMillan). In 2023, she published “The Politics of Survival: The Political Opinions of Social Welfare Beneficiaries in Brazil and the USA” (Columbia University Press). She is the author of “The Politics of Blackness” (2018, Cambridge University Press). Mitchell-Walthour is the past president of the Brazilian Studies Association (2018-2020) and has been the National Co-coordinator of the US Network for Democracy in Brazil since 2019. She is a Board Member of the Washington Brazil Office. She is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including the Fulbright (2022). In 2014, she was the Lemann Scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. She holds the PhD in political science from the University of Chicago, an MPP from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and a BA from Duke University.
Dudu de Morro Agudo
Instituto Enraizados, Fluminense Federal University (UFF)
Dudu de Morro Agudo is an artist, intellectual, rapper, writer, filmmaker, cultural producer, researcher and art educator. Founder and Executive Director of the Enraizados Institute, he has played an important role in promoting popular culture and education. He coordinates the Enraizados Popular Course, an initiative that promotes critical and civic education. Dudu has a master’s degree and a doctorate in Education from the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), in addition to being part of the Youth, Childhood and Daily Life (JICs) research group. His doctoral research addresses RapLab, an activity that provokes the production of networked knowledge based on rap, under the dimension of political formation.
Courtney Crumpler
Duke University
Courtney Crumpler is a researcher, organizer, translator, and movement artist working between Brazil and the United States. A co-director of the Activism, Culture, and Education for Citizenship in Brazil and the U.S. project, she has also served as the graduate coordinator of the Duke Brazil Initiative and the Black Lives Matter Brazil-USA exhibit. Courtney has received research support from the Duke Center for Latin American Studies, the Duke Brazil Initiative, a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, the Kenan Institute for Ethics and the Duke Office of Durham and Community Affairs. She is PhD candidate in Duke’s Department of Romance Studies and holds an MFA in Dance from Duke and an AB in Anthropology from Princeton.
Alexandre Fortes
Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro
Alexandre Fortes (PhD, History, Unicamp) is a full professor of Contemporary History at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. He completed a Post-doctorate at the University of São Paulo (2002-2004) and at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2005), then served as visiting professor at Duke University (2011-2012). He coordinated the “Worlds of Work” (Mundos do Trabalho) Working Group for the Brazilian National History Association (ANPUH) in 2003-2004 and served as editor of Revista Brasileira de História journal from 2013-2015. He is the author of a book about the Porto Alegre working class during the Vargas era entitled Nós do Quarto Distrito (Garamond-EDUCS, 2004) and several articles and chapters on the history of work in Brazil. Together with Paulo Fontes and David Mayer, he organized a special issue on “Brazilian Labor History: New Perspectives in Global Context” for the International Review of Social History (2017). His new book, The Second World War and the Rise of Mass Nationalism in Brazil: Class, Race, and Citizenship, will be released in August 2024 by Palgrave Macmillan.
Alvaro Pereira do Nascimento
Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro
Alvaro Pereira do Nascimento is a full professor of History of Brazil on the UFRRJ (Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro). He focuses on the post-emancipation Americas with a specialization in Brazil. He has authored two award-winning on the revolt of whip in 1910 by bBlack sailors in Brazil in 1910 as well as other aticles on Black history in Brazil since the 19th century . He is currently engaged in research on the teaching of history in the public schools and works in Public History more broadly.
Julian Alvarez
Duke University
Julian Alvarez is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Duke University. Originally from Mansfield, Massachusetts, his research focuses on 20th century Brazil, and he is currently working on a project about the impact of industrial-scale soy cultivation on the politics and culture of central-western Brazil’s cerrado. He grew up listening to US hip-hop and he’s excited to collaborate with Instituto Enraizados to deepen his understanding of Brazilian rap culture while contributing to and learning from their pedagogical project.
Ronni Butts
North Carolina Central University
Ronni Butts is a Cheatham-White Scholar at North Carolina Central University from Charlotte, North Carolina. A member of the class of 2027, she is majoring in Political Science with a concentration in Civic Engagement and Public Policy and a sub concentration in Global Politics. She looks forward to collaborating with the Duke Bass Connections Program and being exposed to a new cultural and linguistic environment that will challenge and help her grow as a student!
Yuri De Melo Costa
Duke University
Yuri De Melo Costa is originally from Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil, where he was born and raised. When he was about six years old, he went to live in an orphanage called SOS Children’s Village in Juiz de Fora. Later, he moved to live with two different foster families until he was 18. During his life, Yuri was the first in his family and community to achieve and occupy various positions. However, he couldn’t and wouldn’t settle for being the only one. Nowadays, he is a student at Duke University, majoring in Economics & Public Policy Studies. Through education, Yuri aims to find fulfillment. He is deeply motivated to address the social challenges that have impacted him, from addressing high school dropouts in Brazil—he was the first member of his family to graduate from high school—to fighting inequality in Higher Education due to the gaps in the Brazilian Affirmative Action. At Duke, he is involved with social impact activities such as the Duke Durham Office of Community Affairs, Karsh Financial Aid Student Advisory Board, and researching the Brazilian adoption system—looking for the best way to improve it by having the minors’ well-being as a cornerstone. By pursuing Economics & Public Policy, Yuri strongly believes that the academic and work experience will help him develop humanistic and pragmatic skills, enabling him to implement effective evidence-based policies in the Brazilian Adoption and Foster Care System.
Rafael De Moura
Duke University
Raf is a senior at Duke, majoring in History and Literature. Their roots span Portugal and Angola, though they were born and raised in South London, where they pursued community-organizing alongside their studies. Subsequently, they have a vested interest in histories both pre- and post-colonial, focusing on semiotics and the relationship between race, gender and political conflict. Raf’s involvement in our Bass Connections project has emboldened both their academic curiosities and personal convictions: not only working against structural inequalities, but also towards more communal, creative forms of knowledge production. They are particularly excited about working in the Baixada Fluminense, and reckoning with social mobility in a Lusophone context. Outside their studies, Raf is a keen poet, writer and media-consumer, ever-critical in their search for beautiful and fascinating stories.
Akshay Gokul
Duke University
Akshay Gokul is a junior from Central Jersey studying public policy and economics. He is energized to use his artistry, particularly through filmmaking and theater, as a means of prompting communal transformation and advancing racial justice. Currently, Akshay serves as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Chair of Duke Student Government, Executive Producer of Carolina Week (a student-run news show at UNC Chapel Hill), and Communications Assistant at the Sanford School of Public Policy. Moreover, Akshay has been passionate in exploring ethical community engagement and leadership through participating in SOL (Service Opportunities in Leadership) within the Hart Leadership Program and Duke Engage Chicago: Connecting Hip-Hop to community activism.
Zaria Hanchell
North Carolina Central University
Zaria Hanchell is a Senior Political Science Major with a Concentration in Theory and Pre-Law at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). Zaria is from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and she graduated high school at the age of fifteen. At the age of 18, she will graduate from NCCU with her B.A. as a part of the class of 2025, after which she plans to embark on law school. She is also active in the arts, as she paints, sings, and has been classically trained in piano for over a decade.
Natalia Harnisch
Duke University
Natalia Harnisch is a Sophomore from River Forest, Illinois double majoring in English and Spanish. She is a poet who believes in the power of human connection that stems from writing and sharing our stories. She deeply values all art forms, as she also does music, dance, photography, and painting. Natalia is of Hispanic heritage, her mother being a Mexican immigrant who instilled in her a love of Latin American culture and a calling to protect Dreamers, minorities, and immigrants. She hopes to combine her passion for literature and writing in both Spanish and English to make change in the immigration system. As a part of this Bass Connections team, Natalia plans to foster a deeper connection to her roots and broaden her horizons on the many forms advocacy can take.
Lucas Lopez
Duke University
Lucas Lopes is a PhD candidate in the Department of Romance Studies at Duke University. Originally from Brazil, he earned an AA degree in Foreign Trade (thanks to a PROUNI fellowship) and worked in International Commerce companies before deciding to pursue a career in the Humanities. He earned his BA in Portuguese and MA in Literary Theory from the State University of Campinas, where he studied the work of William Faulkner. Prior to coming to Duke, he spent a research semester abroad at the University of Victoria in Canada, thanks to a fellowship from the Emerging Leaders of the Americas program. His research focuses on the twentieth-century literatures of Brazil and the Caribbean, emphasizing novels from rural spaces that challenge widespread notions of social and cultural modernization.
Gabriela Mendoza
Duke University
Gabriela Mendoza is an Environmental Science and Policy Major from New York City. She is interested in Environmental Justice and the way in which the climate crisis impacts communities. She is also very interested in cross-cultural exchange and learning about the ways in which other countries combat issues and find solutions that are similar to the conflicts in her community. She hopes to engage further with her Latin American background throughout her time on the research team.
Prince Rivers
University of North Carolina-
Chapel Hill
Prince Rivers is a Morehead-Cain scholar at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill studying philosophy and economics. An incoming freshman, Prince is interested in developing a deeper understanding of Brazilian culture and the socio-political dynamics of the Baixada.
Travis A. Williams
Duke University
Travis is an experienced organizer, leader, and teacher committed to developing healthy families and servant leaders. Travis has worked with children, families, and communities as an organizer, teacher, advocate, and activist for over 20 years. He completed his undergraduate work at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee, Florida, and his legal studies and social work training at The University of Georgia. He is currently studying theology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
