Welcome! My name is Isabel Laterzo (she/her). I am a Political Science PhD Candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an Emerging Scholar (2023) with the Harry F. Guggenheim Foundation. Beginning in the fall of 2024, I will be a Postdoctoral Fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2025, I will transition to Assistant Professor at the LBJ School and a member of the faculty (by courtesy) at the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies and the Department of Government.

I primarily research the politics of crime, violence, and policing, with a focus on the Americas. I am also interested in the politics of public health. My work leverages a variety of methods, including text analysis, survey experiments, and qualitative fieldwork, among others. My research is published in Comparative Political Studies, The Journal of Criminal Justice, The Journal of Politics in Latin America, and Revista Latinoamericana de Opinión Pública and covered in popular news outlets such as The Washington Post. My work has been supported by the Brazilian Studies Association, the U.S. Department of State, and USAID, among other organizations. I am a co-founder and organizer of the Violence, Instability, and Peace (VIP) Workshop.