Research

Global Senior Research Fellows are leading scholars with a history of solid legal studies. They are long-term collaborators, who join our academic community through various programs and actions. Among other activities, senior fellows are invited to share their research with students, scholarship holders, and faculty at FGV Sao Paulo Law School, contribute to the activities of the school's research bodies, join ongoing research networks, and create new research projects and joint publications. They can also offer research-based courses at the school, through  the position of visiting professor. We expect that these researchers attend the school periodically, but without a pre-established schedule, to develop face-to-face activities with the academic community of FGV Sao Paulo Law School.

See below who are the Global Senior Researchers.

Distinguished Senior Global Fellow

David M.Trubek

Contact: dmtrubek@wisc.edu

David M. Trubek is Voss-Bascom Professor of Law and Emeritus Dean of International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A graduate of UW-Madison and Yale Law School, Professor Trubek served as clerk of the court to Judge Charles E. Clark of the 2nd Court of Appeals, and as legal advisor to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission in Brazil, before joining the academy. He became a UW Law School professor in 1973, and served as Associate Dean of Research from 1977 to 1984. During that time, he was also Director of the Civil Litigation Research Project (CLRP), supported by the US Department of Justice. In 1985, he founded the Institute for Legal Studies at UW Law School, which he directed from 1985 to 1990. Professor Trubek was appointed Dean of the University of International Studies in 1990, and became founding director of the UW-Madison International Institute in 1995.

After leaving the position of Dean and Director of the Institute, he directed the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE), from 2001 to 2004. He taught at Yale and Harvard Law Schools; at the European University Institute, in Florence; at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro; at FGV Sao Paulo Law School;, and was a Visiting Scholar in Residence at the European University Institute, at Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, at London School of Economics, and at the Maison des Sciences de L'Homme, in Paris. He was awarded the Kalven Prize, from the Law and Society Association and, in 2002, was named Chevalier des Palmes Académiques by the French government, in recognition of his work on globalization. Trubek has written extensively on international and comparative law, as well as other topics in legal studies, and has published articles and books on the role of law in development, human rights, European integration, the changing role of the legal profession, and the impact of globalization on systems of legal and social protection. He has also contributed to critical legal studies, sociology of law, and the civil process.

Currently, Trubek also serves as co-coordinator of the Project on Autocratic Legalism (PAL), which seeks to understand how law can be used to promote, as well as resist, current autocratic projects. The project is a partnership between the São Paulo Law School of Fundação Getulio Vargas(FGV Sao Paulo Law School) and the University of Oklahoma, and brings together academics from different countries, backgrounds, and research traditions.

Senior Global Fellows

Kevin E. Davis

Contact: davisk@mercury.law.nyu.edu

Assistant: Ian Brydon (brydoni@mercury.law.nyu.edu)

Kevin Davis joined the New York University School of Law as a professor in 2004. Previously, he was a full member of the University of Toronto School of Law. He teaches courses on Contracts, Commercial Law, Law and Development, and Regulation of Corruption Practices Abroad. His current research focuses on anti-corruption law, contract law, and the general relationship between law and economic development.

Professor Davis earned a bachelor's degree in Economics from McGill University, in 1990. After graduating from the University of Toronto with a law degree, in 1993, he served as law clerk  to Judge John Sopinka, at the Supreme Court of Canada, and later as an associate at Tory’s law firm, in Toronto. After completing his master's degree at Columbia University, in 1996, he was appointed assistant professor at the University of Toronto, and became associate professor in 2001. He has also been a visiting professor and researcher at the University of Southern California; at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge; at the São Paulo Law School of Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV Sao Paulo Law School); and at the University of West Indies, Barbados.

Mariana Mota Prado

Contact: mariana.prado@utoronto.ca

Mariana Mota Prado graduated in Law at the University of São Paulo, and has a Master's and PhD degrees from Yale Law School. She is currently a professor at the University of Toronto School of Law, where she was also Associate Dean of Graduate Programs, from 2014 to 2019. She has published extensively on Law and Development, including three books co-authored with Michael J. Trebilcock: Institutional Bypasses: A Strategy to Promote Reforms for Development (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Advanced Introduction to Law and Development (Edward Elgar, 2014), and What Makes Poor Countries Poor (Edward Elgar, 2011). A Brazilian citizen, she taught courses at the Center for Transnational Legal Studies, in London; at the Rio de Janeiro Law School of Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV Law Rio); at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM); at the Universidad de Los Andes, in Colombia; at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, in Argentina; and at the Escuela de Derecho of the Universidad de Puerto Rico. Her research focuses on law and development, corruption, and comparative law.

Octavio Ferraz

Contact: octavio.ferraz@kcl.ac.uk

Octavio Ferraz graduated in Law at the University of São Paulo, where he also earned a Master's degree. He also holds a Master’s in Medical Ethics and Law from King's College, London, and a Doctor in Law from University College, London. Before joining King's College, he was Senior Research Fellow for the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, and then moved to Warwick Law School, where he was an Assistant and later Associate Professor, for eight years. Before moving to the academy, he practiced law in São Paulo, mainly in the areas of corporate public law and medical law, for over ten years. He is still a member of the Brazilian Bar Association, and contributes regularly to the Brazilian press.

Siri Gloppen

Contact: Siri.Gloppen@uib.no and siri.gloppen@cmi.no

Siri Gloppen holds a BA, MS and PhD in Political Science from the Universität Bergen. She is currently Professor of Comparative Politics at the Universität Bergen, Senior Research Fellow at Chr. Michelsen Institute, PluriCourts research coordinator at Universiteteti Oslo, and director of the Center on Law & Social Transformation.

Siri studies the conceptualization, theorization, and the empirical use of law and legal institutions as a policy tool and strategy for social change – how this takes place in different contexts, is engaged in by distinct players, and involves multiple policy fields and institutional arenas. Her work covers legal mobilization and the social and political role of courts in the Global South; constitutional building; human rights, with particular emphasis on social, health, sexual, and reproductive rights; electoral processes, transitional justice, and climate change governance. Her empirical focus is on Southern and Eastern Africa, India, and Latin America.

Bruno Meyerhof Salama

Contact: salama@berkeley.edu

Bruno Meyerhof Salama is a professor at UC Berkeley Law School, and previously was  a professor at São Paulo Law School of Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV Sao Paulo Law School). He worked as a lawyer in New York at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, and in São Paulo at Pinheiro Neto Advogados, being registered as a lawyer in the State of New York and in the Brazilian Bar Association. Bruno was a visiting professor at Columbia Law School and a member of the National Financial System Resources Council (CRSFN). He is a founding partner of Salama Silva Filho Advogados, a Brazilian law firm. He holds a master's and doctorate in Law from UC Berkeley Law School, a Master's degree in Economics from the São Paulo School of Economics of Fundação Getulio Vargas (EESP), and a Bachelor degree in Law from the University of São Paulo.

Helena Alviar García

Contact: helena.alviar@sciencespo.fr

Helena Alviar García holds a PhD in Law from Harvard Law School, and a Bachelor degree from Universidad de Los Andes, in Colombia. She was dean and full professor at Facultad de Derecho of the Universidad de Los Andes, where she taught courses on Property Law, Public Law, Theory of Law, and Feminist Theory. Helena was a visiting professor at universities in Latin America, Europe, and the United States, including Harvard Law School, University of Pennsylvania, Università di Torino, University of Miami, University of Puerto Rico, and University of Wisconsin, Madison. She was also Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, in 2017, Bok Distinguished Visiting Professor at Penn Law School, in 2015, and Tinker Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 2008.

Specialist in Law and Development, Property Law, Social and Economic Rights, Feminism, and Transitional Justice, she is also co-founder of Dejusticia, a Colombia-based research and defense organization, dedicated to strengthening the rule of law and promoting human rights and social justice in Colombia and the Global South. She is also an academic member of the Institute for Global Law and Policy, at Harvard Law School.

Global Law Visiting Professors

The Global Law Visiting Professors are professors at FGV Sao Paulo Law School partner Law schools who work in the Global Law Program (link), a program of courses taught in English, for undergraduate, Stricto Sensu, and Lato Sensu  graduate students at FGV Sao Paulo Law School, and for foreign students who are in an exchange program at the school.

The Global Law Program courses aim to enable foreign students to understand the broad guidelines of the Brazilian legal system, and Brazilian students to become familiar with global legal issues. The program is based on short-term courses without a defined pattern, where the visiting professor has complete freedom for conducting the classes. In addition to attracting foreign students and professors, the Global Law Program expands the globalized experience of FGV Sao Paulo Law School, strengthening the school's ties with the global academic community.

Visiting Researcher Fellows are researchers who wish to develop their research as scholarship holders, for a semester or school year. FGV Sao Paulo Law School receives, as visiting fellows, professionals that are more experienced, masters, doctoral students, and doctors from other academic institutions, and, exceptionally, master's students.

Researchers in this modality have full access to the facilities of FGV Sao Paulo Law School and can participate, as listening students, in courses offered by the school, with professors’ permission, and in various academic events. Visiting fellows must collaborate with ongoing research activities at the different research bodies of FGV Sao Paulo Law School, participating in meetings and organizing events and debates, and can present research results to the school’s academic community.

Visiting researchers must be sponsored by a FGV Sao Paulo Law School professor willing to be a consultant for the proposed research project, and the potential visitor must contact the professors who work in his/her area of interest before applying to the program.

To apply as a Visiting Researcher Fellow, researchers must send the following documents to the e-mail: pesquisa.direitosp@fgv.br:

a) curriculum vitae (CV) and academic background

b) research project

c) personal statement explaining the importance of the research at FGV Sao Paulo Law School

d) letter of recommendation

e) proof of proficiency in Portuguese, English, or Spanish, in the case of foreign candidates from countries with an official language other than these

f) confirmation letter (e-mail format accepted) from a professor at FGV Sao Paulo Law School who agreed to be a sponsoring professor.

Post-Doctoral Fellows are talented researchers interested in advancing their studies as fellows at FGV Sao Paulo Law School. The program offers the opportunity to develop highly qualified research, intellectual support, and a vibrant academic environment. Postdoctoral fellows are expected to advance their research and develop their teaching skills by engaging in the intellectual environment of FGV Sao Paulo Law School, and, among other activities, develop research at the school's research bodies, participate in classes, seminars, and in  organizing conferences, workshops, and joint publications. Researchers in this modality can also combine this position with a visiting professor position at FGV Sao Paulo Law School.

Postdoctoral fellows can be funded by public financing agencies, such as Capes, CNPQ, and Fapes, which have different funding schemes. The academic activities of scholarship holders in this modality must be defined within one of the research bodies of FGV Sao Paulo Law School, together with a school professor.

Additionally, FGV Sao Paulo Law School has its Post-Doctoral Program, which grants scholarships for six months, extended exceptionally for an additional semester, if it is in the mutual interest of the school  and the scholarship holder.